Acknowledgement signaling processes for radio access networks

ABSTRACT

A method of operating a target radio node in a radio access network is disclosed. The method includes receiving control information transmitted on a control channel, and transmitting acknowledgement feedback pertaining to the control information. The disclosure also pertains to related methods and devices.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This disclosure pertains to wireless or telecommunication communicationtechnology, in particular to radio access technology, e.g. for mobilecommunication.

BACKGROUND

Currently, radio telecommunication technology of 5^(th) Generation isbeing developed, with the goal to serve a large variety of use cases.Accordingly, the related systems have to be very flexible, and new kindsof signaling and information may be required to be transmitted.

One field that is of particular importance for many applications isrelated to reliability of signaling.

SUMMARY

It is an object of this disclosure to present approaches allowingimproved reliability of signaling, by applying acknowledgement signalingprocedures to control signaling. The approaches are particularlyadvantageously implemented in a 5^(th) Generation (5G) telecommunicationnetwork or 5G radio access technology or network (RAT/RAN), inparticular according to 3GPP (3^(rd) Generation Partnership Project, astandardisation organization). A suitable RAN may in particular be a RANaccording to NR, for example release 15 or later, or LTE Evolution. Itshould be noted that in the following, the terms data (sub)structure anddata block (sub)structure may be considered to be used synonymously.

Accordingly, a method of operating a target radio node in a radio accessnetwork is disclosed. The method comprises receiving control informationtransmitted on a control channel and transmitting acknowledgementfeedback pertaining to the control information.

There is also disclosed a target radio node for a radio access network.The target radio node is adapted for receiving control informationtransmitted on a control channel. Moreover, the target radio node isadapted for transmitting acknowledgement feedback pertaining to thecontrol information. The target radio node may comprise, and/or beadapted for utilising, processing circuitry and/or radio circuitry, inparticular a transmitter and/or receiver and/or transceiver, forreceiving, e.g. of the control information, and/or transmitting, e.g. ofthe acknowledgement feedback.

A radio node that is, or can be, targeted with a transmission, e.g. ofcontrol information and/or data signaling, may be considered a targetradio node. A target radio node may in particular be a user equipment orterminal. However, in some scenarios, e.g. for backhaul or relaysignaling, the target radio node may be a network node.

Furthermore, a method of operating a transmitting radio node in a radioaccess network is described. The method comprises retransmitting, to atarget radio node, control information based on acknowledgement feedbackpertaining to the control information. Alternatively, or additionally,the method may comprise transmitting, to a target radio node, a controlmessage comprising control information and error coding informationerror encoding the control information.

A transmitting radio node for a radio access network may be considered.The transmitting radio node is adapted for retransmitting, to a targetradio node, control information based on acknowledgement feedbackpertaining to the control information. Alternatively, or additionally,the transmitting radio node may be adapted for transmitting, to a targetradio node, a control message comprising control information and errorcoding information error encoding the control information. Thetransmitting radio node may comprise, and/or be adapted for utilising,processing circuitry and/or radio circuitry, in particular a transmitterand/or receiver and/or transceiver, for receiving, e.g. of theacknowledgment feedback, and/or transmitting and/or re-transmitting,e.g. of the control information and/or the control message, and/or forerror encoding the control information.

With the approaches described herein, control information is subjectedto an acknowledgement signaling procedure pertaining directly to thecontrol information, allowing improved reliability for controlinformation, in particular control information not scheduling datatransmission, e.g. for reception or transmission.

Generally, acknowledgement feedback associated to the controlinformation may also be referred to as control acknowledgement feedbackor control feedback.

A transmitting radio node may be a radio node adapted for transmittingsignaling, e.g. representing or comprising control information and/ordata, to a target radio node. The transmitting radio node may inparticular be a network node. However, in some scenarios, e.g. forsidelink signaling, the transmitting radio node may be a user equipmentor terminal.

Performing re-transmission may be based on received acknowledgementfeedback, and/or may comprise receiving acknowledgement feedback, e.g.on indicated and/or configured resources and/or channel, and/oraccording to an indicated and/or configured codebook. The codebook maybe configured dynamically, e.g. utilising a plurality of controlmessages like scheduling type messages or assignments, and/or commandtype messages. Performing re-transmission may comprise transmitting thecontrol information again, if it was not received correctly, e.g.,according to the feedback. Such re-transmission may use a differenttransmission format or mode and/or MCS and/or error encoding than anearlier transmission. The number of transmission of specific controlinformation may be counted, and in some cases may be limited in numberby a threshold, which may be predefined and/or configured orconfigurable. If the threshold is reached, retransmission may bestopped. It may be considered that performing retransmission comprisestransmitting new control information and/or omitting retransmission ofcontrol information if correct reception is indicated by the feedback.

The control information may generally be transmitted in a controlmessage, e.g. on a physical layer or channel, e.g. as DCI message or SCImessage. A control message may be a command type message, which maycomprise, and/or consist of, command type information; or a schedulingtype message, which may comprise scheduling information, e.g. schedulingdata signaling.

The control information may comprise scheduling type control information(or, shorter, scheduling type information), e.g. control informationindicating resources and/or transmission parameters for reception ofsignaling, and/or control information indicating resources and/ortransmission parameters for transmission of signaling. The signaling mayin particular be data signaling, e.g. on a data channel.

The control information may in particular comprise, or consist of,command type control information, and/or be included into a command typemessage. In general, control information or control message, e.g. DCI orSCI messages, may be distinguished between scheduling typeinformation/messages and command type information/messages. A schedulingtype message may schedule transmission on a data channel (datasignaling), e.g. for reception or transmission for the target radionode, e.g. in downlink or uplink, respectively. Scheduling grant andscheduling assignment are examples of such scheduling type messages. Asdata channel transmission for reception usually undergoes anacknowledgement signaling procedure, a transmitting radio node mayinfer, at least in limited scope, reception of the scheduling assignmentfrom acknowledgement signaling associated to the transmission scheduledfor reception. For data channel transmission transmitted by the targetradio node, the transmission itself allows some inference on receptionof the scheduling grant. A command type message may be a message of adifferent type, e.g., not scheduling transmission on a data channel. Acommand type message may comprise a set of instructions, which may beconfigurable or flexible. The instructions may bescheduling-independent. Command type information may for exampleindicate and/or instruct switching of bandwidth, e.g. to anotherbandwidth part, and/or activation or deactivation of a carrier and/orcell and/or bandwidth part, and/or activation or deactivation ofgrant-free transmissions, and/or indications of selection a parameter orconfiguration out of a set of configured parameters or configurations.In some variants, a command type message may be scheduling independentsuch that it does not schedule data signaling, or it may have astructure in which such scheduling may be configurable or optional. Forthe command type, there may be no scheduled transmission based on whichreception of the control information may be inferred. Thus, theapproaches are particularly applicable to this case. However, also thehandling of scheduling type messages may be advantageously improved withthe approaches described herein, in particular regarding reliability, asa direct and unambiguous feedback may be provided. It should be notedthat scheduling type messages may comprise command type information.

Scheduling of transmission or reception of data signaling may bereferred to as scheduling of a corresponding data channel. A datachannel may be a shared or dedicated channel. Examples of data channelsare PDSCH in downlink, PUSCH in uplink, PSSCH channel in sidelink.Dedicated data channels, in particular for low-latency and/or highreliability transmissions, may be considered, e.g. for URLLC.

Transmitting acknowledgment feedback may generally comprise, and/or bebased on, determining feedback information, e.g. one or more feedback orACK/NACK bits. Such determining may comprise performing error decoding,e.g. based on error coding bits, e.g. CRC and/or FEC bits associated tothe control information, which may be included in the control messagecarrying the control information. Error decoding may comprise correctingcontrol information, for example based on FEC bits. The error codingbits may be determined based on the control information, e.g. utilisingan error coding scheme like CRC, and/or polar coding or LDPC coding orReed Muller coding. The control information may be represented by bits.The control information, and in some cases error coding bits associatedthereto like error detection bits and/or error correction bits, like CRCand/or FEC bits, may be considered to represent one or more datastructures or substructures, for each of which one or more feedbackbits, e.g. to indicate ACK or NACK, may be included in theacknowledgement feedback. Thus, at least one bit may be provided for thewhole of the control information and/or control message, and/or one bitmay be provided for one or more substructures thereof, to whichcorresponding error coding may be associated and/or provided, e.g. inthe control message. The control message may be considered to be similarto a transport block and/or a code block group. An acknowledgementprocess identifier like a HARQ or ARQ identifier may be associated tothe control information and/or the control message. A bit subpatternrepresenting reception (e.g., ACK/NACK or DTX/DRX) may be generallyassociated to the control information in the acknowledgement feedback.

Alternatively, or additionally, transmitting the acknowledgementfeedback may comprise, and/or be based on, selecting resources fortransmission of the acknowledgement feedback. The resources may inparticular be time and/or frequency and/or code resources, which may insome variants be selected or selectable from one or more resources orresource regions or pools of resources. Such resources or region/s orpool/s may be configured to the target radio node.

Generally, the acknowledgement feedback may be transmitted on resourcesscheduled and/or indicated by a control message, in particular thecontrol message carrying the control information. The resources may betime and/or frequency and/or code resources.

It may in general be considered that the resources are selected from apool of resources, which may be configured to the target radio node,e.g. based on higher-layer signaling like MAC or RRC signaling, inparticular for feedback for a command type message. The resources may beassociated to a specific channel and/or may be specifically associatedto acknowledgement feedback for control information. In some cases, theresources may be configured broadly for use by the target radio node.The resources may be in the same transmission timing structure as thereceived control information, or in a later structure, e.g. the next onein which resources are available, and/or as indicated by a configurationand/or the control message carrying the control information. Thetransmission timing structure may in particular be a slot. In somecases, the resources may be associated to non-slot based transmission.It may be considered that the resources are resources for datasignaling, e.g. PUSCH (“UCI on PUSCH”). The acknowledgement feedback maybe rate-matched or punctured on such resources.

In some variants, the control information comprises a response resourceindication indicating resources, and/or transmission parameters, fortransmission of the acknowledgement feedback. The indication may forexample indicate a channel, like a control channel, e.g. a PUCCH, whichmay be a short PUCCH or a long PUCCH, and/or non-slot based or slotbased, respectively. Alternatively, or additionally, the indication mayindicate a resource, resource set or resource region or pool ofresources, or one or more sets or regions or pools, from which resourcesmay be selected for the transmission. The indication may indicateresources for data signaling, e.g. PUSCH resources. In this case, theresources may be implicitly indicated by the control message carryingthe control information, and may optionally be configured with anothermessage, e.g. a scheduling grant or higher-layer signaling. Indicatingresources may be represented by indicating a transmission timingstructure like a slot or mini-slot or subframe in which the feedback hasto be transmitted, e.g. the structure of reception, or (e.g., latest orequal to) N structures later, with N>0. Selecting the resources maycomprise selecting resources from resources available (e.g., configured)for transmission in this indicated transmission timing structure.

In some variants, the control information may comprise a second responseresource indication indicating second resources for transmission ofsecond acknowledgement feedback, the second acknowledgement feedbackpertaining to second information, and/or signaling like data signaling,indicated for reception by the target radio node. The second responseresource indication may be in addition to, or in lieu of a responseresource indication described herein. The second information may inparticular be transmitted, and/or scheduled for transmission, on a datachannel and/or be represented or carried by data signaling. The secondinformation may be indicated for reception and/or configured and/orscheduled by the control information, and/or a control message carryingthe control information, for example a scheduling assignment.Alternatively, or additionally, the second information may be configuredor scheduled by another message, e.g. a second control message. Thesecond resources may be selected or selectable from resources, and/or aset and/or region and/or pool of resources, which may be configured orconfigurable to the target radio node, e.g. by the control message, forexample with the second response resource indication, or with one ormore other messages, e.g. via higher layer signaling like MAC or RRCsignaling. The resources and/or set and/or region and/or pool may be thesame as for the acknowledgment feedback, or different.

Transmitting the acknowledgement feedback may comprise transmittingsecond acknowledgement feedback, e.g. on the same or different resourcesas the acknowledgement feedback. In particular, the secondacknowledgement feedback may be combined with the acknowledgementfeedback for transmission.

Acknowledgement feedback and/or second acknowledgement feedback may betransmitted based on a feedback codebook, e.g. a HARQ codebook. Acodebook may indicate which bit/s of feedback pertain to whichtransmission and/or information and/or data structure (e.g., transportblock or code block or code block group), e.g. indicating acknowledgmentor non-acknowledgement, or non-transmission/reception.

It may be considered that transmitting the acknowledgement feedback isbased on determining whether the control information and/or secondinformation has been received correctly, e.g. based on error codingand/or reception quality. Reception quality may for example be based ona determined signal quality.

The control information may be transmitted in a control informationmessage, in particular on a control channel, which may be on a dedicatedor shared channel, for example a physical channel. The channel may inparticular be a PDCCH or a common control channel, or a PSCCH.

In some variants, the control information may comprise a positionindication indicating a position of the acknowledgement feedbackrelative to second acknowledgement feedback and/or in a feedbackcodebook. The second acknowledgement feedback and/or an associatedsecond resource may be indicated in a control message, e.g. the controlmessage carrying the control information. The position indication maycomprise an indicator like a downlink assignment indicator (DAI), whichmay indicate or count a number of data structures (like transport blocksand/or code blocks and/or code block groups and/or messages and/orcontrol/command messages) for which acknowledgement feedback isscheduled and/or indicated, e.g. control feedback and/or otheracknowledgement feedback. Different control messages, e.g. schedulingassignments, may comprise differently valued indicators, e.g.representing counts. A control message may optionally comprise a totalnumber indicator, which may indicate a total number of data structuresfor which feedback is scheduled and/or indicated. Such an indicator maybe referred to as total DAI. Alternatively, or additionally, a positionindication and/or the indicator may indicate a count of bits scheduledand/or indicated for feedback, or a total number of bits, respectively.A count may pertain to a HARQ codebook, for example indicating where inthe HARQ codebook a bit subpattern representing the feedback informationfor a data structure is to be located. It may be considered that fordifferent types of data structures and/or channels and/or resourcepools, different codebooks may be used. Feedback that is combined may bebased on the same codebook. In some variants, a subpattern combinationpertaining to control information may also pertain to data signaling,e.g. data signaling scheduled for reception, which may be scheduled bythe control message carrying the control information. In such a case,there may be only one indicator, e.g. indicating one count, based onwhich the target radio node may include the subpattern in the codebook.The subpattern combination may comprise a subpattern indicatingreception of the control information and a subpattern indicatingreception of the data signaling, e.g., in a predefined or configured orconfigurable order. For example, the subpattern combination may comprisetwo bits, wherein one bit may indicate ACK/NACK for the controlinformation, and the other ACK/NACK for the data signaling. Otherorders, or different subpatterns may be considered.

Information, in particular control information, may be carried in anassociated message, which may be carried and/or represented byassociated signaling. The information and/or message and/or signalingmay be associated to a specific channel. Accordingly, information may beconsidered to be carried by the corresponding signaling as well as themessage and/or on the associated channel.

Generally, the acknowledgement feedback may be transmitted on a controlchannel, e.g. a dedicated or shared control channel, which may be aphysical channel. The acknowledgement feedback for example may betransmitted on a PUCCH or PSCCH.

In some variants, the acknowledgement feedback may be transmitted on adata channel, e.g. a dedicated or shared data channel, which may be aphysical channel. The acknowledgement feedback for example may betransmitted on a PUSCH or PSSCH.

There is also described a program product comprising instructionsadapted for causing processing circuitry to control and/or perform amethod as described herein.

A carrier medium arrangement carrying and/or storing a program productas described herein is also envisioned.

Acknowledgement feedback or acknowledgement information pertaining to atransmission and/or information like control information may generallybe information allowing (at least) indication of ACK or NACK for theinformation, for example a message or data structure or substructurethereof. In some cases, instead of a NACK, no transmission of feedbackmay be provided, e.g. in a one-bit or one-subpattern codebook pertainingonly to the control information. In this case, a node expecting feedbackmay consider non-transmission as NACK or an indication that the controlmessage/information has been wrongly received or not been received.

Acknowledgement feedback may also be referred to as acknowledgementresponse (or, shorter, simply be referred to as feedback) and/or may beconsidered a form of acknowledgment signaling. These terms may be usedexchangeably. Acknowledgement feedback may represent uplink signaling,control information or control signaling to which the acknowledgementfeedback or signaling pertains may be downlink signaling. However,variants in which both may be sidelink signaling (with differentcommunication directions) are envisioned. Acknowledgement feedback mayin particular be HARQ feedback.

Acknowledgement signaling may generally represent and/or comprise and/orcontain acknowledgement information, which may be structured based on afeedback configuration, e.g. a codebook. The codebook may generally bedynamic, e.g. based on one or more control messages, e.g. DCIinformation and/or scheduling assignments and/or command type messages.Variants with configured and/or predefined and/or static codebook orcodebooks may be considered.

A configuration may generally be indicated and/or configured with one ormore messages, which may be associated to the same or different layersor type, e.g. physical layer and/or RLC layer and/or MAC layer and/orRRC and/or DCI. In particular, part of a configuration may be indicatedand/or configured semi-statically/and/or with RRC and/or MAC signaling),and/or a part may be pre-configured or predefined, and/or a part may beindicated and/or configured dynamically, e.g. with DCI or SCI signaling.

Acknowledgement information may represent and/or comprise one or morebits, in particular a pattern of bits. Multiple bits pertaining to adata substructure may be considered a subpattern. The structure ofacknowledgement information may indicate the order, and/or meaning,and/or mapping, and/or pattern of bits (or subpatterns of bits) of theinformation. An acknowledgment configuration, in particular the feedbackconfiguration, may indicate the size of, and/or arrangement and/ormapping of bits of, acknowledgement information carried by theacknowledgement signaling the configuration pertains to. The structureor mapping may in particular indicate one or more data block structures,e.g. code blocks and/or code block groups and/or transport blocks and/ormessages, e.g. command messages, the acknowledgement informationpertains to, and/or which bits or subpattern of bits are associated towhich data block structure. In some cases, the mapping may pertain toone or more acknowledgement signaling processes, e.g. processes withdifferent identifiers, and/or one or more different data streams. Theconfiguration may indicate to which process/es and/or data stream/s theinformation pertains. Generally, the acknowledgement information maycomprise one or more subpatterns, each of which may pertain to a datablock structure, e.g. a code block or code block group or transportblock. A subpattern may be arranged to indicate acknowledgement ornon-acknowledgement, or another retransmission state like non-schedulingor non-reception, of the associated data block structure. It may beconsidered that a subpattern comprises one bit, or in some cases morethan one bit. It should be noted that acknowledgement information may besubjected to significant processing before being transmitted withacknowledgement signaling. Different configurations may indicatedifferent sizes and/or mapping and/or structures and/or pattern.

An acknowledgement configuration, in particular the feedbackconfiguration, may generally indicate the number of bits ofacknowledgement information represented by the acknowledgementsignaling, and/or the size of the acknowledgement information, whereinthe size might be represented by a number of bits and/or number ofmodulation symbols.

It may be considered that an acknowledgement configuration, inparticular the feedback configuration, may indicate a mapping of one ormore acknowledgment bit subpattern/s to one or more data blockstructures to which the acknowledgement bit subpatterns pertain, e.g. toone or more code block groups or one or more transport blocks, or acombination thereof. An acknowledgement bit pattern may representacknowledgement information, an acknowledgement bit subpattern mayrepresent a subpattern of the pattern.

A transmission format may generally indicate one or more data blockstructures or substructures for transmission or reception, and/or how adata block like a transport block (and/or a related structure) isdivided, e.g. into subblocks or subblock groups, like code block/sand/or code block group/s. A transmission format may in some casespertain to more than one data block, and/or may pertain to more than oneacknowledgement signaling process. It may be considered that atransmission format indicates size in bits and/or coding for the one ormore data block structures or substructures. A transmission format maypertain to signaling to be transmitted by a radio node, or to signalingto be received, and/or to acknowledgement signaling pertaining tosignaling to be received. For different communication directions, and/ordifferent carriers and/or bandwidth parts, and/or sets thereof, and/ordifferent configurations, in particular different configurations of theset of acknowledgement configurations, different transmissions formatsmay be utilised, e.g. defined and/or configured. In particular, atransmission format for transmission on the transmission resources maybe different from a transmission format associated to an acknowledgementconfiguration like the feedback configuration. Transmission formats maybe independently configured from each other, e.g. using differentmessages and/or different signaling, e.g. on different layers of theprotocol stack.

An acknowledgement configuration like the feedback configuration maygenerally be a code block group configuration, which may indicate amapping of one or more acknowledgement information subpatterns (e.g.,one or more bits) to one or more code block groups, each of which maycomprise or consist of the same or a different number of code blocks, inparticular one or more code blocks. Each subpattern may be mapped to onecode block group. In some variants, an acknowledgement configuration mayindicate a mapping of one or more subpatterns to one or more transportblocks, each of which may comprise and/or consist of one or more codeblock groups. Each subpattern may be mapped to one transport block. Anacknowledgement configuration may pertain to a combination of code blockgroup/s and transport block/s, in particular regarding the structure ortransmission format of corresponding acknowledgement information. Anacknowledgement configuration may be considered to configure and/orformat feedback or acknowledgement information pertaining to code blockgroups or transport blocks or code blocks.

A data block structure may correspond to a scheduled data block, e.g.for data signaling. The data blocks may be associated to separatelyscheduled transmissions, e.g. separate channels and/or instances and/orcarriers and/or component carriers and/or data streams, e.g. in thecontext of carrier aggregation and/or multiple-antenna transmissions,e.g. MIMO (Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output). The data blocks and/orassociated data signaling may be for downlink, or in some cases forsidelink. The acknowledgement signaling may generally be uplinksignaling, but in some variants may be sidelink signaling. However,there may be considered cases in which data signaling is uplinksignaling, e.g. in the context of retransmission performed by a userequipment. A subpattern may represent the acknowledgement informationand/or feedback for the associated data block, e.g. with the size asindicated by an assignment indication. Different data blocks may beassociated to different transmission instances and/or differentacknowledgment signaling processes, e.g. HARQ processes. Anacknowledgement signaling procedure may comprise one or moreacknowledgement signaling processes, which may pertain to the samecommunication direction.

A data block structure (or, shorter, data structure) may generallyrepresent, and/or be associated to, a scheduled data block and/orcorresponding signaling. The data block may be scheduled for reception,e.g. by control signaling, in particular a control information message,which may be a scheduling assignment. In some cases, a scheduled datablock may not be received, which may be reflected in the correspondingacknowledgement signaling. A number of data block structures, and/or thenumber of assignment indications, may be considered to represent anumber of transmissions of data scheduled to be received by the userequipment (or second radio node).

A data block structure may generally represent, and/or correspond to, adata block, which may generally be a block of data and/or bits. A datablock may for example be a transport block, code block, or code blockgroup. It may be considered that a data block structure represents adata block which may be intended to be subjected to an acknowledgementsignaling process. A data block may comprise one or more subblocks,which may be grouped into one or more subblock groups, e.g. code blockgroups. A data block may in particular be a transport block, which maycomprise one or more code blocks and/or one or more code block groups. Adata block structure may be considered to accordingly represent atransport block, code block or code block group. A subblock group like acode block group may comprise one or more subblocks, e.g. code blocks.It may be considered that a data block comprises one or more subblockgroups, which may have the same or different sizes (e.g., in number ofbits, e.g. systemic and/or coding bits). It may be considered that adata block comprises information bits or systematic bits (which may beconsidered to represent data to be transmitted and/or error detectionbits) and/or coding bits, e.g. bits for error coding like errordetection and/or in particular error correction coding, and/or parity orCRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) bits. A subblock (e.g., code block) and/orsubblock group (e.g., code block group) may analogously comprisesystemic and/or coding bits. In some cases, systematic bits may beconsidered to comprise information and error detection bits determinedbased on the information bits. Parity bits may be considered torepresent error correction coding bits. It should be noted that for adata structure (like a transport block) comprising one or moresubstructures (e.g., CBGs or code blocks), the systematic bits, andpossibly parity bits, of the substructures may be considered informationbits, based on which error detection coding and/or correction coding maybe performed.

An acknowledgment signaling process may be a HARQ process, and/or beidentified by a process identifier, e.g. a HARQ process identifier orsubidentifier. Acknowledgement signaling and/or associatedacknowledgement information may be referred to as feedback. It should benoted that data blocks or structures to which subpatterns may pertainmay be intended to carry data (e.g., information and/or systemic and/orcoding bits). However, depending on transmission conditions, such datamay be received or not received (or not received correctly), which maybe indicated correspondingly in the feedback. In some cases, asubpattern of acknowledgement signaling may comprise padding bits, e.g.if the acknowledgement information for a data block requires fewer bitsthan indicated as size of the subpattern. Such may for example happen ifthe size is indicated by a unit size larger than required for thefeedback.

Acknowledgment information may generally indicate at least ACK or NACK,e.g. pertaining to an acknowledgment signaling process, or an element ofa data block structure like a data block, subblock group or subblock.Generally, to an acknowledgment signaling process there may beassociated one specific subpattern and/or a data block structure, forwhich acknowledgment information may be provided.

An acknowledgment signaling process may determine correct or incorrectreception, and/or corresponding acknowledgement information, of a datablock like a transport block, and/or substructures thereof, based oncoding bits associated to the data block, and/or based on coding bitsassociated to one or more data block and/or subblocks and/or subblockgroup/s. Acknowledgement information (determined by an acknowledgementsignaling process) may pertain to the data block as a whole, and/or toone or more subblocks or subblock groups. A code block may be consideredan example of a subblock, whereas a code block group may be consideredan example of a subblock group. Accordingly, the associated subpatternmay comprise one or more bits indicating reception status or feedback ofthe data block, and/or one or more bits indicating reception status orfeedback of one or more subblocks or subblock groups. Each subpattern orbit of the subpattern may be associated and/or mapped to a specific datablock or subblock or subblock group. In some variants, correct receptionfor a data block may be indicated if all subblocks or subblock groupsare correctly identified. In such a case, the subpattern may representacknowledgement information for the data block as a whole, reducingoverhead in comparison to provide acknowledgement information for thesubblocks or subblock groups. The smallest structure (e.g.subblock/subblock group/data block) the subpattern providesacknowledgement information for and/or is associated to may beconsidered its (highest) resolution. In some variants, a subpattern mayprovide acknowledgment information regarding several elements of a datablock structure and/or at different resolution, e.g. to allow morespecific error detection. For example, even if a subpattern indicatesacknowledgment signaling pertaining to a data block as a whole, in somevariants higher resolution (e.g., subblock or subblock group resolution)may be provided by the subpattern. A subpattern may generally compriseone or more bits indicating ACK/NACK for a data block, and/or one ormore bits for indicating ACK/NACK for a subblock or subblock group, orfor more than one subblock or subblock group.

A subblock and/or subblock group may comprise information bits(representing the data to be transmitted, e.g. user data and/ordownlink/sidelink data or uplink data). It may be considered that a datablock and/or subblock and/or subblock group also comprises error one ormore error detection bits, which may pertain to, and/or be determinedbased on, the information bits (for a subblock group, the errordetection bit/s may be determined based on the information bits and/orerror detection bits and/or error correction bits of the subblock/s ofthe subblock group). A data block or substructure like subblock orsubblock group may comprise error correction bits, which may inparticular be determined based on the information bits and errordetection bits of the block or substructure, e.g. utilising an errorcorrection coding scheme, e.g. LDPC or polar coding. Generally, theerror correction coding of a data block structure (and/or associatedbits) may cover and/or pertain to information bits and error detectionbits of the structure. A subblock group may represent a combination ofone or more code blocks, respectively the corresponding bits. A datablock may represent a code block or code block group, or a combinationof more than one code block groups. A transport block may be split up incode blocks and/or code block groups, for example based on the bit sizeof the information bits of a higher layer data structure provided forerror coding and/or size requirements or preferences for error coding,in particular error correction coding. Such a higher layer datastructure is sometimes also referred to as transport block, which inthis context represents information bits without the error coding bitsdescribed herein, although higher layer error handling information maybe included, e.g. for an internet protocol like TCP. However, such errorhandling information represents information bits in the context of thisdisclosure, as the acknowledgement signaling procedures described treatit accordingly.

In some variants, a subblock like a code block may comprise errorcorrection bits, which may be determined based on the information bit/sand/or error detection bit/s of the subblock. An error correction codingscheme may be used for determining the error correction bits, e.g. basedon LDPC or polar coding. In some cases, a subblock or code block may beconsidered to be defined as a block or pattern of bits comprisinginformation bits, error detection bit/s determined based on theinformation bits, and error correction bit/s determined based on theinformation bits and/or error detection bit/s. It may be considered thatin a subblock, e.g. code block, the information bits (and possibly theerror correction bit/s) are protected and/or covered by the errorcorrection scheme or corresponding error correction bit/s. A code blockgroup may comprise one or more code blocks. In some variants, noadditional error detection bits and/or error correction bits areapplied, however, it may be considered to apply either or both. Atransport block may comprise one or more code block groups. It may beconsidered that no additional error detection bits and/or errorcorrection bits are applied to a transport block, however, it may beconsidered to apply either or both. In some specific variants, the codeblock group/s comprise no additional layers of error detection orcorrection coding, and the transport block may comprise only additionalerror detection coding bits, but no additional error correction coding.This may particularly be true if the transport block size is larger thanthe code block size and/or the maximum size for error correction coding.A subpattern of acknowledgement signaling (in particular indicating ACKor NACK) may pertain to a code block, e.g. indicating whether the codeblock has been correctly received. It may be considered that asubpattern pertains to a subgroup like a code block group or a datablock like a transport block. In such cases, it may indicate ACK, if allsubblocks or code blocks of the group or data/transport block arereceived correctly (e.g. based on a logical AND operation), and NACK oranother state of non-correct reception if at least one subblock or codeblock has not been correctly received. It should be noted that a codeblock may be considered to be correctly received not only if it actuallyhas been correctly received, but also if it can be correctlyreconstructed based on soft-combining and/or the error correctioncoding.

A subpattern may pertain to one acknowledgement signaling process and/orone carrier like a component carrier and/or data block structure or datablock. It may in particular be considered that one (e.g. specific and/orsingle) subpattern pertains, e.g. is mapped by the codebook, to one(e.g., specific and/or single) acknowledgement signaling process, e.g. aspecific and/or single HARQ process. It may be considered that in thebit pattern, subpatterns are mapped to acknowledgement signalingprocesses and/or data blocks or data block structures on a one-to-onebasis. In some variants, there may be multiple subpatterns (and/orassociated acknowledgment signaling processes) associated to the samecomponent carrier, e.g. if multiple data streams transmitted on thecarrier are subject to acknowledgement signaling processes. A subpatternmay comprise one or more bits, the number of which may be considered torepresent its size or bit size. Different bit n-tupels (n being 1 orlarger) of a subpattern may be associated to different elements of adata block structure (e.g., data block or subblock or subblock group),and/or represent different resolutions. There may be considered variantsin which only one resolution is represented by a bit pattern, e.g. adata block. A bit n-tupel may represent acknowledgement information(also referred to a feedback), in particular ACK or NACK, andoptionally, (if n>1), may represent DTX/DRX or other reception states.ACK/NACK may be represented by one bit, or by more than one bit, e.g. toimprove disambiguity of bit sequences representing ACK or NACK, and/orto improve transmission reliability.

Generally, the acknowledgement signaling may be signaling at oneinstance and/or in one transmission timing structure, and/or scheduledfor common transmission and/or the acknowledgement information may bejointly encoded and/or modulated. The acknowledgement information maypertain to a plurality of different transmissions, associated to and/orrepresented by data block structures, respectively the associated datablocks or data signaling. The data block structures, and/or thecorresponding blocks and/or signaling, may be scheduled for simultaneoustransmission, e.g. for the same transmission timing structure, inparticular within the same slot or subframe, and/or on the samesymbol/s. However, alternatives with scheduling for non-simultaneoustransmission may be considered. For example, the acknowledgmentinformation may pertain to data blocks scheduled for differenttransmission timing structures, e.g. different slots (or mini-slots, orslots and mini-slots) or similar, which may correspondingly be received(or not or wrongly received). Scheduling signaling may generallycomprise indicating resources, e.g. time and/or frequency resources, forexample for receiving or transmitting the scheduled signaling.

A radio node, in particular a configuring radio node, may generally beadapted for scheduling data blocks or subject transmission fortransmission and/or to provide and/or determine and/or configureassociated assignment indications, which may include a total assignmentindication. Configuring a second radio node or an UE may comprise suchscheduling and/or associated determining and/or configuring and/orproviding of the assignment indications.

A resource structure may represent time and/or frequency and/or coderesources. In particular, a resource structure may comprise a pluralityof resource elements, and/or one or more resource blocks/PRBs. To aresource structure, there may be associated a type of signaling, inparticular control signaling, and/or a signaling format, and/or alatency requirement. A latency requirement may in particular definewhen, after receiving signaling, the response has to be transmitted,e.g. with delay that may allow for processing. The requirement maydefine a delay of 1 symbol or 2 symbols between the end of the receivedsignaling and the transmission of response control signaling, inparticular acknowledgement signaling pertaining to the receivedsignaling, e.g. data signaling. A resource structure may correspond toresources in the transmission resource pool. Different resourcestructures may differ in at least one resource element. Resourcestructures may be arranged and/or grouped in the transmission resourcepool, e.g. according to a configuration, which may be a higher layerconfiguration, e.g. based on MAC or RRC signaling. Short responsecontrol signaling may generally be associated to a short format, e.g.short PUCCH or short PSCCH, e.g. according to NR standardisation, ifapplicable. Long response control signaling may generally be associatedto a long format, e.g. long PUCCH or long PSCCH.

Signaling may be considered to carry a message and/or information, ifthe message and/or information is represented in the (modulated)waveform of the signaling. In particular, extraction of a message and/orinformation may require demodulation and/or decoding of the signaling.Information may be considered to be included in a message if the messagecomprises a value and/or parameter and/or bit field and/or indication orindicator representing the information, or more than one or acombination thereof. Information included in such a message may beconsidered to be carried by the signaling carrying the message, and viceversa. A signaling characteristic, however, may pertain to acharacteristic accessible without demodulation and/or decoding, and/ormay be determined or determinable independent thereof. However, in somecases it may be considered that signaling is demodulated and/or decodedto determine whether the characteristic is associated to specificsignaling, e.g. if the resources characterising the signaling actuallybelong to control signaling and/or to signaling intended for theresponding radio node or user equipment. Also, in some cases, thecharacteristic may be provided as information in a message, inparticular if the characterising signaling is not carrying the selectioncontrol message. Generally, selection of the resource structure may bebased on one or more than one signaling characteristics. A signalingcharacteristic may in particular represent one or more resources, inparticular in time domain, e.g. beginning and/or end and/or duration ofthe signaling, e.g., represented in symbol/s, and/or frequency range orresources of the signaling, e.g. represented in subcarrier/s, and/ornumerology of the signaling, in particular of control signaling or datasignaling like PDSCH signaling or PSSCH signaling. In some cases, thecharacteristic may indicate a message format, e.g. a format of theselection control message, for example an associated DCI or SCI format.It may generally be considered that a signaling characteristicrepresents and/or indicates a DCI format and/or search space (e.g.,reception pool) and/or code, e.g. scrambling code, and/or an identity,e.g. one of different identities (like R-NTI or C-NTIs) assigned to theresponding radio node or user equipment. Control signaling may bescrambled based on such identity.

Transmitting acknowledgment information/feedback on the resources maycomprise multiplexing acknowledgement information and data/datasignaling on the transmission resources, e.g., for UCI on PUSCHscenarios. In general, transmitting acknowledgement information and/orfeedback may comprise mapping the information to the transmissionresources and/or modulation symbol/s, e.g. based on a modulation andcoding scheme and/or transmission format. The acknowledgementinformation may be punctured or rate-matched. Acknowledgementinformation pertaining to different subject transmissions and/oracknowledgment signaling processes may be mapped differently. Forexample, acknowledgement information pertaining to late subjecttransmissions and/or having a size smaller than a threshold size (e.g.,3 or 2 bits) may be punctured, whereas acknowledgment informationpertaining to earlier (non-late) subject transmissions and/or having asize equal to or larger than the threshold size may be rate-matched.

Acknowledgement feedback, in particular control feedback, may generallybe transmitted on resources and/or on a channel and/or according to atransmission format according to one or more configurations, which mayfor example be selectable based on one or more indications of controlinformation, e.g. of the control message carrying the controlinformation.

The approaches described herein facilitate provision of feedback forcontrol information with limited signaling overhead, and can be easilyimplemented for flexible use.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The drawings are provided to illustrate concepts and approachesdescribed herein, and are not intended to limit their scope. Thedrawings comprise:

FIG. 1, showing an exemplary diagram of transmitted messages;

FIG. 2, showing an exemplary radio node implemented as a user equipment;and

FIG. 3, showing an exemplary radio node implemented as a network node.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following, approaches are described for illustrative purposes inthe context of NR RAT. However, they are generally applicable with othertechnologies. Also, communication in uplink and downlink between atransmitting radio node (transmitting RN) like a network node and atarget radio node (target RN) like an UE is described by way of example.The approaches should not be construed to be limited to suchcommunication, but can also be applied for sidelink or backhaul or relaycommunication. For ease of reference, in some cases it is referred to achannel to represent signaling or transmission on the channel. A PUSCHmay represent uplink data signaling, a PDSCH downlink data signaling, aPDCCH downlink control signaling (in particular, one or more DCImessages like scheduling assignments or grants), a PUCCH uplink controlsignaling, in particular signaling of UCI. In some cases, UCI may betransmitted on PUSCH or associated resource instead of on PUCCH.

Mini-slots or non-slot-based transmissions may be considered. NRsupports slot-based transmission, where a DL assignment (or schedulingassignment, typically contained in a DCI transmitted on PDCCH) may bereceived at the beginning of a slot. The scheduled DL transmission(e.g., PDSCH) typically may also start early in the slot.

In addition, NR also supports non-slot-based transmissions ormini-slots. Here, the scheduled DL transmission (e.g., PDSCH) can inprinciple start at any symbol, also the transmission duration isflexible and usually (significantly) shorter than a slot duration. Thescheduling PDCCH might be either located at the beginning of the slot orat the beginning of the actual DL transmission, or in a suitableCORESET. The latter is especially useful for low latency transmission,where the determination that a transmission needs to be scheduledhappens late and slot-based scheduling is no longer possible. Mini-slotsare therefore especially useful for above mentioned low latencytransmissions which might interrupt (preempt) an already ongoingtransmission.

In NR terminology, a slot-based transmission is also denoted as PDSCHscheduling Type A, while non-slot-based transmission (mini-slot) isdenoted PDSCH transmission Type B.

Exemplary DL control signaling is discussed in more detail. DLassignments and UL grants may be contained in Downlink ControlInformation (DCI) messages that are typically sent on the PDCCH. Theresources a UE searches for a PDCCH candidate are typically organized ina control resource set (CORESET). Within a CORESET a UE might have oneor more search spaces configured. A search space is an arrangement ofphysical resources within the CORESET which the UE needs to search forPDCCH candidates and the contained DCI. Typically, PDCCH candidatesand/or Das of different sizes are organized in different search spaces.A UE needs to determine if a detected PDCCH candidate is for the UE.This could for example be done by including a UE identifier (e.g. RNTI)into the DCI, or scrambling the CRC of the encoded DCI with the UEidentity (e.g. RNTI). For Polar codes, which may be used to encode DCI,UE identify (e.g. RNTI) can also be put on frozen bits, a particularityof Polar codes.

A carrier may be portioned into bandwidth parts (BWP). Bandwidth partscan have multiple usages. One of the envisioned usage scenarios is toenable multiple numerologies mixed in frequency-domain on the samecarrier. A BWP configuration may indicate a set of frequency-domainresources, and an associate numerology. A UE can be configured with oneor multiple BWP parts. DL and UL configurations (and/or SLconfigurations) may be are independent from each other. Typically, eachBWP has its own associated CORESET for the scheduling DCI.

FIG. 1 schematically shows a message diagram. A transmitting RN maytransmit a control message, e.g. a DCI message. The message may betransmitted on an associated control channel like PDCCH. A target RN mayreceive the control message. Based on the control message, it mayprovide acknowledgement feedback, for example on a control channel likePUCCH, or a data channel like PUSCH. Other channels may be used ifapplicable. If the control message is of scheduling type, it may forexample schedule data signaling to be received by the target RN, e.g. ona data channel like PDSCH. With such scheduling, second acknowledgementfeedback pertaining to the data signaling may be scheduled and/orindicated by the message. The target RN may transmit the secondacknowledgement feedback in addition to the acknowledgement feedback.The feedbacks may be transmitted at different times (as indicated), e.g.different transmission occasions and/or slots and/or symbols timeintervals, or simultaneously, e.g. multiplexed or combined. Inparticular, the feedbacks may be combined based on a feedbackconfiguration, which may represent a codebook. The acknowledgementfeedback may be HARQ or ARQ feedback.

In general, feedback may be considered to pertain to information orsignaling if is determined based on evaluating error coding includedinto the information and/or calculated for the information, and/or if itis adapted to indicate a reception status of the information orsignaling, e.g. acknowledgement or non-acknowledgement.

FIG. 2 schematically shows a radio node, in particular a terminal orwireless device 10, which may in particular be implemented as a UE (UserEquipment). Radio node 10 comprises processing circuitry (which may alsobe referred to as control circuitry) 20, which may comprise a controllerconnected to a memory. Any module of the radio node 10, e.g. acommunicating module or determining module, may be implemented in and/orexecutable by, the processing circuitry 20, in particular as module inthe controller. Radio node 10 also comprises radio circuitry 22providing receiving and transmitting or transceiving functionality(e.g., one or more transmitters and/or receivers and/or transceivers),the radio circuitry 22 being connected or connectable to the processingcircuitry. An antenna circuitry 24 of the radio node 10 is connected orconnectable to the radio circuitry 22 to collect or send and/or amplifysignals. Radio circuitry 22 and the processing circuitry 20 controllingit are configured for cellular communication with a network, e.g. a RANas described herein, and/or for sidelink communication. Radio node 10may generally be adapted to carry out any of the methods of operating aradio node like terminal or UE disclosed herein; in particular, it maycomprise corresponding circuitry, e.g. processing circuitry, and/ormodules.

FIG. 3 schematically show a radio node 100, which may in particular beimplemented as a network node 100, for example an eNB or gNB or similarfor NR. Radio node 100 comprises processing circuitry (which may also bereferred to as control circuitry) 120, which may comprise a controllerconnected to a memory. Any module, e.g. transmitting module and/orreceiving module and/or configuring module of the node 100 may beimplemented in and/or executable by the processing circuitry 120. Theprocessing circuitry 120 is connected to control radio circuitry 122 ofthe node 100, which provides receiver and transmitter and/or transceiverfunctionality (e.g., comprising one or more transmitters and/orreceivers and/or transceivers). An antenna circuitry 124 may beconnected or connectable to radio circuitry 122 for signal reception ortransmittance and/or amplification. Node 100 may be adapted to carry outany of the methods for operating a radio node or network node disclosedherein; in particular, it may comprise corresponding circuitry, e.g.processing circuitry, and/or modules. The antenna circuitry 124 may beconnected to and/or comprise an antenna array. The node 100,respectively its circuitry, may be adapted to perform any of the methodsof operating a network node or a radio node as described herein; inparticular, it may comprise corresponding circuitry, e.g. processingcircuitry, and/or modules. The radio node 100 may generally comprisecommunication circuitry, e.g. for communication with another networknode, like a radio node, and/or with a core network and/or an internetor local net, in particular with an information system, which mayprovide information and/or data to be transmitted to a user equipment.

References to specific resource structures like transmission timingstructure and/or symbol and/or slot and/or mini-slot and/or subcarrierand/or carrier may pertain to a specific numerology, which may bepredefined and/or configured or configurable. A transmission timingstructure may represent a time interval, which may cover one or moresymbols. Some examples of a transmission timing structure aretransmission time interval (TTI), subframe, slot and mini-slot. A slotmay comprise a predetermined, e.g. predefined and/or configured orconfigurable, number of symbols, e.g. 6 or 7, or 12 or 14. A mini-slotmay comprise a number of symbols (which may in particular beconfigurable or configured) smaller than the number of symbols of aslot, in particular 1, 2, 3 or 4 symbols. A transmission timingstructure may cover a time interval of a specific length, which may bedependent on symbol time length and/or cyclic prefix used. Atransmission timing structure may pertain to, and/or cover, a specifictime interval in a time stream, e.g. synchronized for communication.Timing structures used and/or scheduled for transmission, e.g. slotand/or mini-slots, may be scheduled in relation to, and/or synchronizedto, a timing structure provided and/or defined by other transmissiontiming structures. Such transmission timing structures may define atiming grid, e.g., with symbol time intervals within individualstructures representing the smallest timing units. Such a timing gridmay for example be defined by slots or subframes (wherein in some cases,subframes may be considered specific variants of slots). A transmissiontiming structure may have a duration (length in time) determined basedon the durations of its symbols, possibly in addition to cyclicprefix/es used. The symbols of a transmission timing structure may havethe same duration, or may in some variants have different duration. Thenumber of symbols in a transmission timing structure may be predefinedand/or configured or configurable, and/or be dependent on numerology.The timing of a mini-slot may generally be configured or configurable,in particular by the network and/or a network node. The timing may beconfigurable to start and/or end at any symbol of the transmissiontiming structure, in particular one or more slots.

There is generally considered a program product comprising instructionsadapted for causing processing and/or control circuitry to carry outand/or control any method described herein, in particular when executedon the processing and/or control circuitry. Also, there is considered acarrier medium arrangement carrying and/or storing a program product asdescribed herein.

A carrier medium arrangement may comprise one or more carrier media.Generally, a carrier medium may be accessible and/or readable and/orreceivable by processing or control circuitry. Storing data and/or aprogram product and/or code may be seen as part of carrying data and/ora program product and/or code. A carrier medium generally may comprise aguiding/transporting medium and/or a storage medium. Aguiding/transporting medium may be adapted to carry and/or carry and/orstore signals, in particular electromagnetic signals and/or electricalsignals and/or magnetic signals and/or optical signals. A carriermedium, in particular a guiding/transporting medium, may be adapted toguide such signals to carry them. A carrier medium, in particular aguiding/transporting medium, may comprise the electromagnetic field,e.g. radio waves or microwaves, and/or optically transmissive material,e.g. glass fiber, and/or cable. A storage medium may comprise at leastone of a memory, which may be volatile or non-volatile, a buffer, acache, an optical disc, magnetic memory, flash memory, etc.

A system comprising one or more radio nodes as described herein, inparticular a network node and a user equipment, is described. The systemmay be a wireless communication system, and/or provide and/or representa radio access network.

Moreover, there may be generally considered a method of operating aninformation system, the method comprising providing information.Alternatively, or additionally, an information system adapted forproviding information may be considered. Providing information maycomprise providing information for, and/or to, a target system, whichmay comprise and/or be implemented as radio access network and/or aradio node, in particular a network node or user equipment or terminal.Providing information may comprise transferring and/or streaming and/orsending and/or passing on the information, and/or offering theinformation for such and/or for download, and/or triggering suchproviding, e.g. by triggering a different system or node to streamand/or transfer and/or send and/or pass on the information. Theinformation system may comprise, and/or be connected or connectable to,a target, for example via one or more intermediate systems, e.g. a corenetwork and/or internet and/or private or local network. Information maybe provided utilising and/or via such intermediate system/s. Providinginformation may be for radio transmission and/or for transmission via anair interface and/or utilising a RAN or radio node as described herein.Connecting the information system to a target, and/or providinginformation, may be based on a target indication, and/or adaptive to atarget indication. A target indication may indicate the target, and/orone or more parameters of transmission pertaining to the target and/orthe paths or connections over which the information is provided to thetarget. Such parameter/s may in particular pertain to the air interfaceand/or radio access network and/or radio node and/or network node.Example parameters may indicate for example type and/or nature of thetarget, and/or transmission capacity (e.g., data rate) and/or latencyand/or reliability and/or cost, and/or indicate quality of serviceand/or latency and/or data throughput and/or prioritisation, inparticular they may indicate a capability to provide such, respectivelyone or more estimates thereof. The target indication may be provided bythe target, or determined by the information system, e.g. based oninformation received from the target and/or historical information,and/or be provided by a user, for example a user operating the target ora device in communication with the target, e.g. via the RAN and/or airinterface. For example, a user may indicate on a user equipmentcommunicating with the information system that information is to beprovided via a RAN, e.g. by selecting from a selection provided by theinformation system, for example on a user application or user interface,which may be a web interface. An information system may comprise one ormore information nodes. An information node may generally compriseprocessing circuitry and/or communication circuitry. In particular, aninformation system and/or an information node may be implemented as acomputer and/or a computer arrangement, e.g. a host computer or hostcomputer arrangement and/or server or server arrangement. In somevariants, an interaction server (e.g., web server) of the informationsystem may provide a user interface, and based on user input may triggertransmitting and/or streaming information provision to the user (and/orthe target) from another server, which may be connected or connectableto the interaction server and/or be part of the information system or beconnected or connectable thereto. The information may be any kind ofdata, in particular data intended for a user of for use at a terminal,e.g. video data and/or audio data and/or location data and/orinteractive data and/or game-related data and/or environmental dataand/or technical data and/or traffic data and/or vehicular data and/orcircumstantial data and/or operational data. The information provided bythe information system may be mapped to, and/or mappable to, and/or beintended for mapping to, communication or data signaling and/or one ormore data channels as described herein (which may be signaling orchannel/s of an air interface and/or used within a RAN and/or for radiotransmission). It may be considered that the information is formattedbased on the target indication and/or target, e.g. regarding data amountand/or data rate and/or data structure and/or timing, which inparticular may be pertaining to a mapping to communication or datasignaling and/or one or more data channel/s. Mapping information to datasignaling and/or data channel/s may be considered to refer to using thesignaling/channel/s to carry the data, e.g. on higher layers ofcommunication, with the signaling/channel/s underlying the transmission.A target indication generally may comprise different components, whichmay have different sources, and/or which may indicate differentcharacteristics of the target and/or communication path/s thereto. Aformat of information may be specifically selected, e.g. from a set ofdifferent formats, for information to be transmitted on an air interfaceand/or by a RAN as described herein. This may be particularly pertinentsince an air interface may be limited in terms of capacity and/or ofpredictability, and/or potentially be cost sensitive. The format may beselected to be adapted to the transmission indication, which may inparticular indicate that a RAN or radio node as described herein is inthe path (which may be the indicated and/or planned and/or expectedpath) of information between the target and the information system. A(communication) path of information may represent the interface/s (e.g.,air and/or cable interfaces) and/or the intermediate system/s (if any),between the information system and/or the node providing or transferringthe information, and the target, over which the information is, or is tobe, passed on. A path may be (at least partly) undetermined when atarget indication is provided, and/or the information isprovided/transferred by the information system, e.g. if an internet isinvolved, which may comprise multiple, dynamically chosen paths.Information and/or a format used for information may be packet-based,and/or be mapped, and/or be mappable and/or be intended for mapping, topackets. Alternatively, or additionally, there may be considered amethod for operating a target device comprising providing a targetindicating to an information system. More alternatively, oradditionally, a target device may be considered, the target device beingadapted for providing a target indication to an information system. Inanother approach, there may be considered a target indication tooladapted for, and/or comprising an indication module for, providing atarget indication to an information system. The target device maygenerally be a target as described above. A target indication tool maycomprise, and/or be implemented as, software and/or application or app,and/or web interface or user interface, and/or may comprise one or moremodules for implementing actions performed and/or controlled by thetool. The tool and/or target device may be adapted for, and/or themethod may comprise, receiving a user input, based on which a targetindicating may be determined and/or provided. Alternatively, oradditionally, the tool and/or target device may be adapted for, and/orthe method may comprise, receiving information and/or communicationsignaling carrying information, and/or operating on, and/or presenting(e.g., on a screen and/or as audio or as other form of indication),information. The information may be based on received information and/orcommunication signaling carrying information. Presenting information maycomprise processing received information, e.g. decoding and/ortransforming, in particular between different formats, and/or forhardware used for presenting. Operating on information may beindependent of or without presenting, and/or proceed or succeedpresenting, and/or may be without user interaction or even userreception, for example for automatic processes, or target deviceswithout (e.g., regular) user interaction like MTC devices, of forautomotive or transport or industrial use. The information orcommunication signaling may be expected and/or received based on thetarget indication. Presenting and/or operating on information maygenerally comprise one or more processing steps, in particular decodingand/or executing and/or interpreting and/or transforming information.Operating on information may generally comprise relaying and/ortransmitting the information, e.g. on an air interface, which mayinclude mapping the information onto signaling (such mapping maygenerally pertain to one or more layers, e.g. one or more layers of anair interface, e.g. RLC (Radio Link Control) layer and/or MAC layerand/or physical layer/s). The information may be imprinted (or mapped)on communication signaling based on the target indication, which maymake it particularly suitable for use in a RAN (e.g., for a targetdevice like a network node or in particular a UE or terminal). The toolmay generally be adapted for use on a target device, like a UE orterminal. Generally, the tool may provide multiple functionalities, e.g.for providing and/or selecting the target indication, and/or presenting,e.g. video and/or audio, and/or operating on and/or storing receivedinformation. Providing a target indication may comprise transmitting ortransferring the indication as signaling, and/or carried on signaling,in a RAN, for example if the target device is a UE, or the tool for aUE. It should be noted that such provided information may be transferredto the information system via one or more additionally communicationinterfaces and/or paths and/or connections. The target indication may bea higher-layer indication and/or the information provided by theinformation system may be higher-layer information, e.g. applicationlayer or user-layer, in particular above radio layers like transportlayer and physical layer. The target indication may be mapped onphysical layer radio signaling, e.g. related to or on the user-plane,and/or the information may be mapped on physical layer radiocommunication signaling, e.g. related to or on the user-plane (inparticular, in reverse communication directions). The describedapproaches allow a target indication to be provided, facilitatinginformation to be provided in a specific format particularly suitableand/or adapted to efficiently use an air interface. A user input may forexample represent a selection from a plurality of possible transmissionmodes or formats, and/or paths, e.g. in terms of data rate and/orpackaging and/or size of information to be provided by the informationsystem.

In general, a numerology and/or subcarrier spacing may indicate thebandwidth (in frequency domain) of a subcarrier of a carrier, and/or thenumber of subcarriers in a carrier and/or the numbering of thesubcarriers in a carrier. Different numerologies may in particular bedifferent in the bandwidth of a subcarrier. In some variants, all thesubcarriers in a carrier have the same bandwidth associated to them. Thenumerology and/or subcarrier spacing may be different between carriersin particular regarding the subcarrier bandwidth. A symbol time length,and/or a time length of a timing structure pertaining to a carrier maybe dependent on the carrier frequency, and/or the subcarrier spacingand/or the numerology. In particular, different numerologies may havedifferent symbol time lengths.

Signaling may generally comprise one or more sy and/or signals and/ormessages. A signal may comprise or represent one or more bits. Anindication may represent signaling, and/or be implemented as a signal,or as a plurality of signals. One or more signals may be included inand/or represented by a message. Signaling, in particular controlsignaling, may comprise a plurality of signals and/or messages, whichmay be transmitted on different carriers and/or be associated todifferent signaling processes, e.g. representing and/or pertaining toone or more such processes and/or corresponding information. Anindication may comprise signaling, and/or a plurality of signals and/ormessages and/or may be comprised therein, which may be transmitted ondifferent carriers and/or be associated to different acknowledgementsignaling processes, e.g. representing and/or pertaining to one or moresuch processes. Signaling associated to a channel may be transmittedsuch that represents signaling and/or information for that channel,and/or that the signaling is interpreted by the transmitter and/orreceiver to belong to that channel. Such signaling may generally complywith transmission parameters and/or format/s for the channel.

Reference signaling may be signaling comprising one or more referencesymbols and/or structures. Reference signaling may be adapted forgauging and/or estimating and/or representing transmission conditions,e.g. channel conditions and/or transmission path conditions and/orchannel (or signal or transmission) quality. It may be considered thatthe transmission characteristics (e.g., signal strength and/or formand/or modulation and/or timing) of reference signaling are availablefor both transmitter and receiver of the signaling (e.g., due to beingpredefined and/or configured or configurable and/or being communicated).Different types of reference signaling may be considered, e.g.pertaining to uplink, downlink or sidelink, cell-specific (inparticular, cell-wide, e.g., CRS) or device or user specific (addressedto a specific target or user equipment, e.g., CSI-RS),demodulation-related (e.g., DMRS) and/or signal strength related, e.g.power-related or energy-related or amplitude-related (e.g., SRS or pilotsignaling) and/or phase-related, etc.

Uplink or sidelink signaling may be OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency DivisionMultiple Access) or SC-FDMA (Single Carrier Frequency Division MultipleAccess) signaling. Downlink signaling may in particular be OFDMAsignaling. However, signaling is not limited thereto (Filter-Bank basedsignaling may be considered one alternative).

A radio node may generally be considered a device or node adapted forwireless and/or radio (and/or microwave) frequency communication, and/orfor communication utilising an air interface, e.g. according to acommunication standard.

A radio node may be a network node, or a user equipment or terminal. Anetwork node may be any radio node of a wireless communication network,e.g. a base station and/or gNodeB (gNB) and/or eNodeB (eNB) and/or relaynode and/or micro/nano/pico/femto node and/or transmission point (TP)and/or access point (AP) and/or other node, in particular for a RAN asdescribed herein.

The terms wireless device, user equipment (UE) and terminal may beconsidered to be interchangeable in the context of this disclosure. Awireless device, user equipment or terminal may represent an end devicefor communication utilising the wireless communication network, and/orbe implemented as a user equipment according to a standard. Examples ofuser equipments may comprise a phone like a smartphone, a personalcommunication device, a mobile phone or terminal, a computer, inparticular laptop, a sensor or machine with radio capability (and/oradapted for the air interface), in particular for MTC(Machine-Type-Communication, sometimes also referred to M2M,Machine-To-Machine), or a vehicle adapted for wireless communication. Auser equipment or terminal may be mobile or stationary.

A radio node may generally comprise processing circuitry and/or radiocircuitry. A radio node, in particular a network node, may in some casescomprise cable circuitry and/or communication circuitry, with which itmay be connected or connectable to another radio node and/or a corenetwork.

Circuitry may comprise integrated circuitry. Processing circuitry maycomprise one or more processors and/or controllers (e.g.,microcontrollers), and/or ASICs (Application Specific IntegratedCircuitry) and/or FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Array), or simmilar. Itmay be considered that processing circuitry comprises, and/or is(operatively) connected or connectable to one or more memories or memoryarrangements. A memory arrangement may comprise one or more memories. Amemory may be adapted to store digital information. Examples formemories comprise volatile and non-volatile memory, and/or Random AccessMemory (RAM), and/or Read-Only-Memory (ROM), and/or magnetic and/oroptical memory, and/or flash memory, and/or hard disk memory, and/orEPROM or EEPROM (Erasable Programmable ROM or Electrically ErasableProgrammable ROM).

Radio circuitry may comprise one or more transmitters and/or receiversand/or transceivers (a transceiver may operate or be operable astransmitter and receiver, and/or may comprise joint or separatedcircuitry for receiving and transmitting, e.g. in one package orhousing), and/or may comprise one or more amplifiers and/or oscillatorsand/or filters, and/or may comprise, and/or be connected or connectableto antenna circuitry and/or one or more antennas and/or antenna arrays.An antenna array may comprise one or more antennas, which may bearranged in a dimensional array, e.g. 2D or 3D array, and/or antennapanels. A remote radio head (RRH) may be considered as an example of anantenna array. However, in some variants, a RRH may be also beimplemented as a network node, depending on the kind of circuitry and/orfunctionality implemented therein.

Communication circuitry may comprise radio circuitry and/or cablecircuitry. Communication circuitry generally may comprise one or moreinterfaces, which may be air interface/s and/or cable interface/s and/oroptical interface/s, e.g. laser-based. Interface/s may be in particularpacket-based. Cable circuitry and/or a cable interfaces may comprise,and/or be connected or connectable to, one or more cables (e.g., opticalfiber-based and/or wire-based), which may be directly or indirectly(e.g., via one or more intermediate systems and/or interfaces) beconnected or connectable to a target, e.g. controlled by communicationcircuitry and/or processing circuitry.

Any one or all of the modules disclosed herein may be implemented insoftware and/or firmware and/or hardware. Different modules may beassociated to different components of a radio node, e.g. differentcircuitries or different parts of a circuitry. It may be considered thata module is distributed over different components and/or circuitries. Aprogram product as described herein may comprise the modules related toa device on which the program product is intended (e.g., a userequipment or network node) to be executed (the execution may beperformed on, and/or controlled by the associated circuitry).

A radio access network may be a wireless communication network, and/or aRadio Access Network (RAN) in particular according to a communicationstandard. A communication standard may in particular a standardaccording to 3GPP and/or 5G, e.g. according to NR or LTE, in particularLTE Evolution.

A wireless communication network may be and/or comprise a Radio AccessNetwork (RAN), which may be and/or comprise any kind of cellular and/orwireless radio network, which may be connected or connectable to a corenetwork. The approaches described herein are particularly suitable for a5G network, e.g. LTE Evolution and/or NR (New Radio), respectivelysuccessors thereof. A RAN may comprise one or more network nodes, and/orone or more terminals, and/or one or more radio nodes. A network nodemay in particular be a radio node adapted for radio and/or wirelessand/or cellular communication with one or more terminals. A terminal maybe any device adapted for radio and/or wireless and/or cellularcommunication with or within a RAN, e.g. a user equipment (UE) or mobilephone or smartphone or computing device or vehicular communicationdevice or device for machine-type-communication (MTC), etc. A terminalmay be mobile, or in some cases stationary. A RAN or a wirelesscommunication network may comprise at least one network node and a UE,or at least two radio nodes. There may be generally considered awireless communication network or system, e.g. a RAN or RAN system,comprising at least one radio node, and/or at least one network node andat least one terminal.

Transmitting in downlink may pertain to transmission from the network ornetwork node to the terminal. Transmitting in uplink may pertain totransmission from the terminal to the network or network node.Transmitting in sidelink may pertain to (direct) transmission from oneterminal to another. Uplink, downlink and sidelink (e.g., sidelinktransmission and reception) may be considered communication directions.In some variants, uplink and downlink may also be used to describedwireless communication between network nodes, e.g. for wireless backhauland/or relay communication and/or (wireless) network communication forexample between base stations or similar network nodes, in particularcommunication terminating at such. It may be considered that backhauland/or relay communication and/or network communication is implementedas a form of sidelink or uplink communication or similar thereto.

Control information or a control information message or correspondingsignaling (control signaling) may be transmitted on a control channel,e.g. a physical control channel, which may be a downlink channel or (ora sidelink channel in some cases, e.g. one UE scheduling another UE).For example, control information/allocation information may be signaledby a network node on PDCCH (Physical Downlink Control Channel) and/or aPDSCH (Physical Downlink Shared Channel) and/or a HARQ-specific channel.Acknowledgement signaling, e.g. as a form of control information orsignaling like uplink control information/signaling, may be transmittedby a terminal on a PUCCH (Physical Uplink Control Channel) and/or PUSCH(Physical Uplink Shared Channel) and/or a HARQ-specific channel.Multiple channels may apply for multi-component/multi-carrier indicationor signaling.

Signaling may generally be considered to represent an electromagneticwave structure (e.g., over a time interval and frequency interval),which is intended to convey information to at least one specific orgeneric (e.g., anyone who might pick up the signaling) target. A processof signaling may comprise transmitting the signaling. Transmittingsignaling, in particular control signaling or communication signaling,e.g. comprising or representing acknowledgement signaling and/orresource requesting information, may comprise encoding and/ormodulating. Encoding and/or modulating may comprise error detectioncoding and/or forward error correction encoding and/or scrambling.Receiving control signaling may comprise corresponding decoding and/ordemodulation. Error detection coding may comprise, and/or be based on,parity or checksum approaches, e.g. CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check).Forward error correction coding may comprise and/or be based on forexample turbo coding and/or Reed-Muller coding, and/or polar codingand/or LDPC coding (Low Density Parity Check). The type of coding usedmay be based on the channel (e.g., physical channel) the coded signal isassociated to. A code rate may represent the ratio of the number ofinformation bits before encoding to the number of encoded bits afterencoding, considering that encoding adds coding bits for error detectioncoding and forward error correction. Coded bits may refer to informationbits (also called systematic bits) plus coding bits.

Communication signaling may comprise, and/or represent, and/or beimplemented as, data signaling, and/or user plane signaling.Communication signaling may be associated to a data channel, e.g. aphysical downlink channel or physical uplink channel or physicalsidelink channel, in particular a PDSCH (Physical Downlink SharedChannel) or PSSCH (Physical Sidelink Shared Channel). Generally, a datachannel may be a shared channel or a dedicated channel. Data signalingmay be signaling associated to and/or on a data channel.

An indication generally may explicitly and/or implicitly indicate theinformation it represents and/or indicates. Implicit indication may forexample be based on position and/or resource used for transmission.Explicit indication may for example be based on a parametrisation withone or more parameters, and/or one or more index or indices, and/or oneor more bit patterns representing the information. It may in particularbe considered that control signaling as described herein, based on theutilised resource sequence, implicitly indicates the control signalingtype.

A resource element may generally describe the smallest individuallyusable and/or encodable and/or decodable and/or modulatable and/ordemodulatable time-frequency resource, and/or may describe atime-frequency resource covering a symbol time length in time and asubcarrier in frequency. A signal may be allocatable and/or allocated toa resource element. A subcarrier may be a subband of a carrier, e.g. asdefined by a standard. A carrier may define a frequency and/or frequencyband for transmission and/or reception. In some variants, a signal(jointly encoded/modulated) may cover more than one resource elements. Aresource element may generally be as defined by a correspondingstandard, e.g. NR or LTE. As symbol time length and/or subcarrierspacing (and/or numerology) may be different between different symbolsand/or subcarriers, different resource elements may have differentextension (length/width) in time and/or frequency domain, in particularresource elements pertaining to different carriers.

A resource generally may represent a time-frequency and/or coderesource, on which signaling, e.g. according to a specific format, maybe communicated, for example transmitted and/or received, and/or beintended for transmission and/or reception.

A resource pool generally may indicate and/or comprise resources, inparticular time-frequency resources, e.g. time and frequency intervals,which may be contiguous or interrupted, and/or code resources. Aresource pool may in particular indicate and/or comprise resourceelements and/or resource blocks, e.g. PRBs. A radio node like a userequipment may be considered to be configured with a resource pool if itreceived corresponding control signaling configuring it therewith. Suchcontrol signaling may in particular be transmitted by a receiving radionode as described herein. The control signaling may in particular behigher layer signaling, e.g. MAC and/or RRC signaling, and/or may besemi-static or semi-persistent. In some cases, the responding radio nodeor user equipment may be considered configured with a resource pool, ifit is informed about a corresponding configuration, e.g. that it mayaccess resources in the pool for transmitting. Such a configuration insome cases may be predefined, e.g. based on a standard and/or defaultconfiguration. A resource pool may be dedicated to one responding radionode or user equipment, or in some cases shared between several. It maybe considered that a resource pool may be general, or for specific typesof signaling, e.g. control signaling or data signaling. A transmissionresource pool may in particular be for control signaling, e.g. uplinkcontrol signaling and/or sidelink control signaling, and/or may bededicated to the user equipment/responding radio node. It may beconsidered that a resource pool comprises a plurality of resourcestructures, which may be arranged in subpools or groups, e.g. pertainingand/or according to type of (received or scheduled) signaling or type ofresponse control signaling. Each group or subpool may comprise a numberof resource structures, wherein the number may be representable by anindicator and/or bit field of the selection control information. Forexample, the maximum number of resource structures in a group maycorrespond to the maximum number of different values representable bythe bit field or indicator. Different groups may have different numbersof resource structures. It may generally be considered that a groupcomprises a smaller number of resource structures than representable bythe indicator or bit field. A resource pool may represent a search spaceand/or space of availability of resources and/or resource structuresavailable for specific signaling. In particular, a transmission resourcepool may be considered to represent a (time/frequency and/or code)domain or space of resources available for response control signaling.

A signaling characteristic may represent resources and/or resourcestructures in a reception resource pool, which may be different from thetransmission resource pool. Resources and/or resource structuresrepresenting signaling characteristics of characterising signaling, inparticular downlink (or sidelink) control signaling, and/or acorresponding pool, may in particular comprise one or more CORESETs(COntrol REsource SETs), each of which may represent a group or subpool.A CORESET may be associated to a specific time interval, in particularin a transmission timing structure like a slot, e.g. one or moresymbols. It may be considered that a first CORESET is configured for the1, 2, or 3 first symbols in a slot. A second CORESET may be configuredfor one or more later symbols, e.g. the 5th and/or 6th symbol of thesame slot. In this case, the second CORESET may in particular correspondto mini-slot related signaling, e.g. comprise resource structuresassociated to short (e.g., 1 or 2 symbols) response control signaling,and/or a short latency requirement (e.g., 1 or 2 symbols), and/orreceived or scheduled transmission in a mini-slot and/or in response toa mini-slot, e.g. mini-slot data signaling. The first CORESET may beassociated to slot-based signaling, e.g. long data signaling (e.g.,longer than 2, 3 or 4 symbols), and/or response control signaling withrelaxed latency requirement (e.g., more than 1 or 2 symbols, and/orallowing transmission in a later transmission timing structure like alater slot or subframe), and/or long response control signaling, e.g.longer than 2 or 3 or 4 symbols. Generally, different CORESETs may beseparated in time domain by at least 1 symbol, in particular by 1, 2, 3or 4 symbols. Depending in which of the groups or subpools, inparticular CORESETs, characterising signaling is received, it may beassociated to a specific subpool or group of the transmission resourcepool. A reception resource pool may be predefined and/or configured tothe responding radio node, e.g. by the receiving radio node, which mayalternatively or additionally configure the transmission resource pool.Pool configuration may generally be predefined, or performed by thenetwork or a network node (e.g., a receiving radio node), or anotherresponding radio node taking the corresponding functionality and/or alsooperating as a receiving radio node, e.g. in sidelink communication (inwhich the configuration may be performed by another UE, or thenetwork/network node).

A border symbol may generally represent a starting symbol or an endingsymbol for transmitting and/or receiving. A starting symbol may inparticular be a starting symbol of uplink or sidelink signaling, forexample control signaling or data signaling. Such signaling may be on adata channel or control channel, e.g. a physical channel, in particulara physical uplink shared channel (like PUSCH) or a sidelink data orshared channel, or a physical uplink control channel (like PUCCH) or asidelink control channel. If the starting symbol is associated tocontrol signaling (e.g., on a control channel), the control signalingmay be in response to received signaling (in sidelink or downlink), e.g.representing acknowledgement signaling associated thereto, which may beHARQ or ARQ signaling. An ending symbol may represent an ending symbol(in time) of downlink or sidelink transmission or signaling, which maybe intended or scheduled for the radio node or user equipment. Suchdownlink signaling may in particular be data signaling, e.g. on aphysical downlink channel like a shared channel, e.g. a PDSCH (PhysicalDownlink Shared Channel). A starting symbol may be determined based on,and/or in relation to, such an ending symbol.

Configuring a radio node, in particular a terminal or user equipment,may refer to the radio node being adapted or caused or set and/orinstructed to operate according to the configuration. Configuring may bedone by another device, e.g., a network node (for example, a radio nodeof the network like a base station or eNodeB) or network, in which caseit may comprise transmitting configuration data to the radio node to beconfigured. Such configuration data may represent the configuration tobe configured and/or comprise one or more instruction pertaining to aconfiguration, e.g. a configuration for transmitting and/or receiving onallocated resources, in particular frequency resources. A radio node mayconfigure itself, e.g., based on configuration data received from anetwork or network node. A network node may utilise, and/or be adaptedto utilise, its circuitry/ies for configuring. Allocation informationmay be considered a form of configuration data. Configuration data maycomprise and/or be represented by configuration information, and/or oneor more corresponding indications and/or message/s

Generally, configuring may include determining configuration datarepresenting the configuration and providing, e.g. transmitting, it toone or more other nodes (parallel and/or sequentially), which maytransmit it further to the radio node (or another node, which may berepeated until it reaches the wireless device). Alternatively, oradditionally, configuring a radio node, e.g., by a network node or otherdevice, may include receiving configuration data and/or data pertainingto configuration data, e.g., from another node like a network node,which may be a higher-level node of the network, and/or transmittingreceived configuration data to the radio node. Accordingly, determininga configuration and transmitting the configuration data to the radionode may be performed by different network nodes or entities, which maybe able to communicate via a suitable interface, e.g., an X2 interfacein the case of LTE or a corresponding interface for NR. Configuring aterminal may comprise scheduling downlink and/or uplink transmissionsfor the terminal, e.g. downlink data and/or downlink control signalingand/or DCI and/or uplink control or data or communication signaling, inparticular acknowledgement signaling, and/or configuring resourcesand/or a resource pool therefor.

A resource structure may be considered to be neighbored in frequencydomain by another resource structure, if they share a common borderfrequency, e.g. one as an upper frequency border and the other as alower frequency border. Such a border may for example be represented bythe upper end of a bandwidth assigned to a subcarrier n, which alsorepresents the lower end of a bandwidth assigned to a subcarrier n+1. Aresource structure may be considered to be neighbored in time domain byanother resource structure, if they share a common border time, e.g. oneas an upper (or right in the figures) border and the other as a lower(or left in the figures) border. Such a border may for example berepresented by the end of the symbol time interval assigned to a symboln, which also represents the beginning of a symbol time intervalassigned to a symbol n₊1.

Generally, a resource structure being neighbored by another resourcestructure in a domain may also be referred to as abutting and/orbordering the other resource structure in the domain.

A resource structure may general represent a structure in time and/orfrequency domain, in particular representing a time interval and afrequency interval. A resource structure may comprise and/or becomprised of resource elements, and/or the time interval of a resourcestructure may comprise and/or be comprised of symbol time interval/s,and/or the frequency interval of a resource structure may compriseand/or be comprised of subcarrier/s. A resource element may beconsidered an example for a resource structure, a slot or mini-slot or aPhysical Resource Block (PRB) or parts thereof may be considered others.A resource structure may be associated to a specific channel, e.g. aPUSCH or PUCCH, in particular resource structure smaller than a slot orPRB.

Examples of a resource structure in frequency domain comprise abandwidth or band, or a bandwidth part. A bandwidth part may be a partof a bandwidth available for a radio node for communicating, e.g. due tocircuitry and/or configuration and/or regulations and/or a standard. Abandwidth part may be configured or configurable to a radio node. Insome variants, a bandwidth part may be the part of a bandwidth used forcommunicating, e.g. transmitting and/or receiving, by a radio node. Thebandwidth part may be smaller than the bandwidth (which may be a devicebandwidth defined by the circuitry/configuration of a device, and/or asystem bandwidth, e.g. available for a RAN). It may be considered that abandwidth part comprises one or more resource blocks or resource blockgroups, in particular one or more PRBs or PRB groups. A bandwidth partmay pertain to, and/or comprise, one or more carriers. A resource poolor region or set may generally comprise one or a plurality (inparticular, two or a multiple of two larger than two) of resources orresource structures. A resource or resource structure may comprise oneor more resource elements (in particular, two or a multiple of twolarger than two), or one or more PRBs or PRB groups (in particular, twoor a multiple of two larger than two), which may be continuous infrequency.

A carrier may generally represent a frequency range or band and/orpertain to a central frequency and an associated frequency interval. Itmay be considered that a carrier comprises a plurality of subcarriers. Acarrier may have assigned to it a central frequency or center frequencyinterval, e.g. represented by one or more subcarriers (to eachsubcarrier there may be generally assigned a frequency bandwidth orinterval). Different carriers may be non-overlapping, and/or may beneighboring in frequency domain.

It should be noted that the term “radio” in this disclosure may beconsidered to pertain to wireless communication in general, and may alsoinclude wireless communication utilising microwave and/or millimeterand/or other frequencies, in particular between 100 MHz or 1 GHz, and100 GHz or 20 or 10 GHz. Such communication may utilise one or morecarriers.

A radio node, in particular a network node or a terminal, may generallybe any device adapted for transmitting and/or receiving radio and/orwireless signals and/or data, in particular communication data, inparticular on at least one carrier. The at least one carrier maycomprise a carrier accessed based on a LBT procedure (which may becalled LBT carrier), e.g., an unlicensed carrier. It may be consideredthat the carrier is part of a carrier aggregate.

Receiving or transmitting on a cell or carrier may refer to receiving ortransmitting utilizing a frequency (band) or spectrum associated to thecell or carrier. A cell may generally comprise and/or be defined by orfor one or more carriers, in particular at least one carrier for ULcommunication/transmission (called UL carrier) and at least one carrierfor DL communication/transmission (called DL carrier). It may beconsidered that a cell comprises different numbers of UL carriers and DLcarriers. Alternatively, or additionally, a cell may comprise at leastone carrier for UL communication/transmission and DLcommunication/transmission, e.g., in TDD-based approaches.

A channel may generally be a logical, transport or physical channel. Achannel may comprise and/or be arranged on one or more carriers, inparticular a plurality of subcarriers. A channel carrying and/or forcarrying control signaling/control information may be considered acontrol channel, in particular if it is a physical layer channel and/orif it carries control plane information. Analogously, a channel carryingand/or for carrying data signaling/user information may be considered adata channel, in particular if it is a physical layer channel and/or ifit carries user plane information. A channel may be defined for aspecific communication direction, or for two complementary communicationdirections (e.g., UL and DL, or sidelink in two directions), in whichcase it may be considered to have two component channels, one for eachdirection. Examples of channels comprise a channel for low latencyand/or high reliability transmission, in particular a channel forUltra-Reliable Low Latency Communication (URLLC), which may be forcontrol and/or data.

In general, a symbol may represent and/or be associated to a symbol timelength, which may be dependent on the carrier and/or subcarrier spacingand/or numerology of the associated carrier. Accordingly, a symbol maybe considered to indicate a time interval having a symbol time length inrelation to frequency domain. A symbol time length may be dependent on acarrier frequency and/or bandwidth and/or numerology and/or subcarrierspacing of, or associated to, a symbol. Accordingly, different symbolsmay have different symbol time lengths. In particular, numerologies withdifferent subcarrier spacings may have different symbol time length.Generally, a symbol time length may be based on, and/or include, a guardtime interval or cyclic extension, e.g. prefix or postfix.

A sidelink may generally represent a communication channel (or channelstructure) between two UEs and/or terminals, in which data istransmitted between the participants (UEs and/or terminals) via thecommunication channel, e.g. directly and/or without being relayed via anetwork node. A sidelink may be established only and/or directly via airinterface/s of the participant, which may be directly linked via thesidelink communication channel. In some variants, sidelink communicationmay be performed without interaction by a network node, e.g. on fixedlydefined resources and/or on resources negotiated between theparticipants. Alternatively, or additionally, it may be considered thata network node provides some control functionality, e.g. by configuringresources, in particular one or more resource pool/s, for sidelinkcommunication, and/or monitoring a sidelink, e.g. for charging purposes.

Sidelink communication may also be referred to as device-to-device (D2D)communication, and/or in some cases as ProSe (Proximity Services)communication, e.g. in the context of LTE. A sidelink may be implementedin the context of V2x communication (Vehicular communication), e.g. V2V(Vehicle-to-Vehicle), V2I (Vehicle-to-Infrastructure) and/or V2P(Vehicle-to-Person). Any device adapted for sidelink communication maybe considered a user equipment or terminal.

A sidelink communication channel (or structure) may comprise one or more(e.g., physical or logical) channels, e.g. a PSCCH (Physical SidelinkControl CHannel, which may for example carry control information like anacknowledgement position indication, and/or a PSSCH (Physical SidelinkShared CHannel, which for example may carry data and/or acknowledgementsignaling). It may be considered that a sidelink communication channel(or structure) pertains to and/or used one or more carrier/s and/orfrequency range/s associated to, and/or being used by, cellularcommunication, e.g. according to a specific license and/or standard.Participants may share a (physical) channel and/or resources, inparticular in frequency domain and/or related to a frequency resourcelike a carrier) of a sidelink, such that two or more participantstransmit thereon, e.g. simultaneously, and/or time-shifted, and/or theremay be associated specific channels and/or resources to specificparticipants, so that for example only one participant transmits on aspecific channel or on a specific resource or specific resources, e.g.,in frequency domain and/or related to one or more carriers orsubcarriers.

A sidelink may comply with, and/or be implemented according to, aspecific standard, e.g. a LTE-based standard and/or NR. A sidelink mayutilise TDD (Time Division Duplex) and/or FDD (Frequency DivisionDuplex) technology, e.g. as configured by a network node, and/orpreconfigured and/or negotiated between the participants. A userequipment may be considered to be adapted for sidelink communication ifit, and/or its radio circuitry and/or processing circuitry, is adaptedfor utilising a sidelink, e.g. on one or more frequency ranges and/orcarriers and/or in one or more formats, in particular according to aspecific standard. It may be generally considered that a Radio AccessNetwork is defined by two participants of a sidelink communication.Alternatively, or additionally, a Radio Access Network may berepresented, and/or defined with, and/or be related to a network nodeand/or communication with such a node.

Communication or communicating may generally comprise transmittingand/or receiving signaling. Communication on a sidelink (or sidelinksignaling) may comprise utilising the sidelink for communication(respectively, for signaling). Sidelink transmission and/or transmittingon a sidelink may be considered to comprise transmission utilising thesidelink, e.g. associated resources and/or transmission formats and/orcircuitry and/or the air interface. Sidelink reception and/or receivingon a sidelink may be considered to comprise reception utilising thesidelink, e.g. associated resources and/or transmission formats and/orcircuitry and/or the air interface. Sidelink control information (e.g.,SCI) may generally be considered to comprise control informationtransmitted utilising a sidelink.

Generally, carrier aggregation (CA) may refer to the concept of a radioconnection and/or communication link between a wireless and/or cellularcommunication network and/or network node and a terminal or on asidelink comprising a plurality of carriers for at least one directionof transmission (e.g. DL and/or UL), as well as to the aggregate ofcarriers. A corresponding communication link may be referred to ascarrier aggregated communication link or CA communication link; carriersin a carrier aggregate may be referred to as component carriers (CC). Insuch a link, data may be transmitted over more than one of the carriersand/or all the carriers of the carrier aggregation (the aggregate ofcarriers). A carrier aggregation may comprise one (or more) dedicatedcontrol carriers and/or primary carriers (which may e.g. be referred toas primary component carrier or PCC), over which control information maybe transmitted, wherein the control information may refer to the primarycarrier and other carriers, which may be referred to as secondarycarriers (or secondary component carrier, SCC). However, in someapproaches, control information may be send over more than one carrierof an aggregate, e.g. one or more PCCs and one PCC and one or more SCCs.

A transmission may generally pertain to a specific channel and/orspecific resources, in particular with a starting symbol and endingsymbol in time, covering the interval therebetween. A scheduledtransmission may be a transmission scheduled and/or expected and/or forwhich resources are scheduled or provided or reserved. However, notevery scheduled transmission has to be realized. For example, ascheduled downlink transmission may not be received, or a scheduleduplink transmission may not be transmitted due to power limitations, orother influences (e.g., a channel on an unlicensed carrier beingoccupied). A transmission may be scheduled for a transmission timingsubstructure (e.g., a mini-slot, and/or covering only a part of atransmission timing structure) within a transmission timing structurelike a slot. A border symbol may be indicative of a symbol in thetransmission timing structure at which the transmission starts or ends.

Predefined in the context of this disclosure may refer to the relatedinformation being defined for example in a standard, and/or beingavailable without specific configuration from a network or network node,e.g. stored in memory, for example independent of being configured.Configured or configurable may be considered to pertain to thecorresponding information being set/configured, e.g. by the network or anetwork node.

A configuration or schedule, like a mini-slot configuration and/orstructure configuration, may schedule transmissions, e.g. for thetime/transmissions it is valid, and/or transmissions may be scheduled byseparate signaling or separate configuration, e.g. separate RRCsignaling and/or downlink control information signaling. Thetransmission/s scheduled may represent signaling to be transmitted bythe device for which it is scheduled, or signaling to be received by thedevice for which it is scheduled, depending on which side of acommunication the device is. It should be noted that downlink controlinformation or specifically DCI signaling may be considered physicallayer signaling, in contrast to higher layer signaling like MAC (MediumAccess Control) signaling or RRC layer signaling. The higher the layerof signaling is, the less frequent/the more time/resource consuming itmay be considered, at least partially due to the information containedin such signaling having to be passed on through several layers, eachlayer requiring processing and handling.

A scheduled transmission, and/or transmission timing structure like amini-slot or slot, may pertain to a specific channel, in particular aphysical uplink shared channel, a physical uplink control channel, or aphysical downlink shared channel, e.g. PUSCH, PUCCH or PDSCH, and/or maypertain to a specific cell and/or carrier aggregation. A correspondingconfiguration, e.g. scheduling configuration or symbol configuration maypertain to such channel, cell and/or carrier aggregation. It may beconsidered that the scheduled transmission represents transmission on aphysical channel, in particular a shared physical channel, for example aphysical uplink shared channel or physical downlink shared channel. Forsuch channels, semi-persistent configuring may be particularly suitable.

Generally, a configuration may be a configuration indicating timing,and/or be represented or configured with corresponding configurationdata. A configuration may be embedded in, and/or comprised in, a messageor configuration or corresponding data, which may indicate and/orschedule resources, in particular semi-persistently and/orsemi-statically.

A control region of a transmission timing structure may be an intervalin time for intended or scheduled or reserved for control signaling, inparticular downlink control signaling, and/or for a specific controlchannel, e.g. a physical downlink control channel like PDCCH. Theinterval may comprise, and/or consist of, a number of symbols in time,which may be configured or configurable, e.g. by (UE-specific) dedicatedsignaling (which may be single-cast, for example addressed to orintended for a specific UE), e.g. on a PDCCH, or RRC signaling, or on amulticast or broadcast channel. In general, the transmission timingstructure may comprise a control region covering a configurable numberof symbols. It may be considered that in general the border symbol isconfigured to be after the control region in time.

The duration of a symbol (symbol time length or interval) of thetransmission timing structure may generally be dependent on a numerologyand/or carrier, wherein the numerology and/or carrier may beconfigurable. The numerology may be the numerology to be used for thescheduled transmission.

Scheduling a device, or for a device, and/or related transmission orsignaling, may be considered comprising, or being a form of, configuringthe device with resources, and/or of indicating to the device resources,e.g. to use for communicating. Scheduling may in particular pertain to atransmission timing structure, or a substructure thereof (e.g., a slotor a mini-slot, which may be considered a substructure of a slot). Itmay be considered that a border symbol may be identified and/ordetermined in relation to the transmission timing structure even if fora substructure being scheduled, e.g. if an underlying timing grid isdefined based on the transmission timing structure. Signaling indicatingscheduling may comprise corresponding scheduling information and/or beconsidered to represent or contain configuration data indicating thescheduled transmission and/or comprising scheduling information. Suchconfiguration data or signaling may be considered a resourceconfiguration or scheduling configuration. It should be noted that sucha configuration (in particular as single message) in some cases may notbe complete without other configuration data, e.g. configured with othersignaling, e.g. higher layer signaling. In particular, the symbolconfiguration may be provided in addition to scheduling/resourceconfiguration to identify exactly which symbols are assigned to ascheduled transmission. A scheduling (or resource) configuration mayindicate transmission timing structure/s and/or resource amount (e.g.,in number of symbols or length in time) for a scheduled transmission.

A scheduled transmission may be transmission scheduled, e.g. by thenetwork or network node. Transmission may in this context may be uplink(UL) or downlink (DL) or sidelink (SL) transmission. A device, e.g. auser equipment, for which the scheduled transmission is scheduled, mayaccordingly be scheduled to receive (e.g., in DL or SL), or to transmit(e.g. in UL or SL) the scheduled transmission. Scheduling transmissionmay in particular be considered to comprise configuring a scheduleddevice with resource/s for this transmission, and/or informing thedevice that the transmission is intended and/or scheduled for someresources. A transmission may be scheduled to cover a time interval, inparticular a successive number of symbols, which may form a continuousinterval in time between (and including) a starting symbol and an endingsymbols. The starting symbol and the ending symbol of a (e.g.,scheduled) transmission may be within the same transmission timingstructure, e.g. the same slot. However, in some cases, the ending symbolmay be in a later transmission timing structure than the startingsymbol, in particular a structure following in time. To a scheduledtransmission, a duration may be associated and/or indicated, e.g. in anumber of symbols or associated time intervals. In some variants, theremay be different transmissions scheduled in the same transmission timingstructure. A scheduled transmission may be considered to be associatedto a specific channel, e.g. a shared channel like PUSCH or PDSCH.

In the context of this disclosure, there may be distinguished betweendynamically scheduled or aperiodic transmission and/or configuration,and semi-static or semi-persistent or periodic transmission and/orconfiguration. The term “dynamic” or similar terms may generally pertainto configuration/transmission valid and/or scheduled and/or configuredfor (relatively) short timescales and/or a (e.g., predefined and/orconfigured and/or limited and/or definite) number of occurrences and/ortransmission timing structures, e.g. one or more transmission timingstructures like slots or slot aggregations, and/or for one or more(e.g., specific number) of transmission/occurrences. Dynamicconfiguration may be based on low-level signaling, e.g. controlsignaling on the physical layer and/or MAC layer, in particular in theform of DCI or SCI. Periodic/semi-static may pertain to longertimescales, e.g. several slots and/or more than one frame, and/or anon-defined number of occurrences, e.g., until a dynamic configurationcontradicts, or until a new periodic configuration arrives. A periodicor semi-static configuration may be based on, and/or be configured with,higher-layer signaling, in particular RCL layer signaling and/or RRCsignaling and/or MAC signaling.

A transmission timing structure may comprise a plurality of symbols,and/or define an interval comprising several symbols (respectively theirassociated time intervals). In the context of this disclosure, it shouldbe noted that a reference to a symbol for ease of reference may beinterpreted to refer to the time domain projection or time interval ortime component or duration or length in time of the symbol, unless it isclear from the context that the frequency domain component also has tobe considered. Examples of transmission timing structures include slot,subframe, mini-slot (which also may be considered a substructure of aslot), slot aggregation (which may comprise a plurality of slots and maybe considered a superstructure of a slot), respectively their timedomain component. A transmission timing structure may generally comprisea plurality of symbols defining the time domain extension (e.g.,interval or length or duration) of the transmission timing structure,and arranged neighboring to each other in a numbered sequence. A timingstructure (which may also be considered or implemented assynchronisation structure) may be defined by a succession of suchtransmission timing structures, which may for example define a timinggrid with symbols representing the smallest grid structures. Atransmission timing structure, and/or a border symbol or a scheduledtransmission may be determined or scheduled in relation to such a timinggrid. A transmission timing structure of reception may be thetransmission timing structure in which the scheduling control signalingis received, e.g. in relation to the timing grid. A transmission timingstructure may in particular be a slot or subframe or in some cases, amini-slot.

Feedback signaling may be considered a form or control signaling, e.g.uplink or sidelink control signaling, like UCI (Uplink ControlInformation) signaling or SCI (Sidelink Control Information) signaling.Feedback signaling may in particular comprise and/or representacknowledgement signaling and/or acknowledgement information and/ormeasurement reporting.

Acknowledgement information may comprise an indication of a specificvalue or state for an acknowledgement signaling process, e.g. ACK orNACK or DTX. Such an indication may for example represent a bit or bitvalue or bit pattern or an information switch. Different levels ofacknowledgement information, e.g. providing differentiated informationabout quality of reception and/or error position in received dataelement/s may be considered and/or represented by control signaling.Acknowledgment information may generally indicate acknowledgment ornon-acknowledgment or non-reception or different levels thereof, e.g.representing ACK or NACK or DTX. Acknowledgment information may pertainto one acknowledgement signaling process. Acknowledgement signaling maycomprise acknowledgement information pertaining to one or moreacknowledgement signaling processes, in particular one or more HARQ orARQ processes. It may be considered that to each acknowledgmentsignaling process the acknowledgement information pertains to, aspecific number of bits of the information size of the control signalingis assigned. Measurement reporting signaling may comprise measurementinformation.

Signaling may generally comprise one or more symbols and/or signalsand/or messages. A signal may comprise and/or represent one or morebits, which may be modulated into a common modulated signal. Anindication may represent signaling, and/or be implemented as a signal,or as a plurality of signals. One or more signals may be included inand/or represented by a message. Signaling, in particular controlsignaling, may comprise a plurality of signals and/or messages, whichmay be transmitted on different carriers and/or be associated todifferent acknowledgement signaling processes, e.g. representing and/orpertaining to one or more such processes. An indication may comprisesignaling and/or a plurality of signals and/or messages and/or may becomprised therein, which may be transmitted on different carriers and/orbe associated to different acknowledgement signaling processes, e.g.representing and/or pertaining to one or more such processes.

Signaling utilising, and/or on and/or associated to, resources or aresource structure may be signaling covering the resources or structure,signaling on the associated frequency/ies and/or in the associated timeinterval/s. It may be considered that a signaling resource structurecomprises and/or encompasses one or more substructures, which may beassociated to one or more different channels and/or types of signalingand/or comprise one or more holes (resource element/s not scheduled fortransmissions or reception of transmissions). A resource substructure,e.g. a feedback resource structure, may generally be continuous in timeand/or frequency, within the associated intervals. It may be consideredthat a substructure, in particular a feedback resource structure,represents a rectangle filled with one or more resource elements intime/frequency space. However, in some cases, a resource structure orsubstructure, in particular a frequency resource range, may represent anon-continuous pattern of resources in one or more domains, e.g. timeand/or frequency. The resource elements of a substructure may bescheduled for associated signaling.

It should generally be noted that the number of bits or a bit rateassociated to specific signaling that can be carried on a resourceelement may be based on a modulation and coding scheme (MCS). Thus, bitsor a bit rate may be seen as a form of resources representing a resourcestructure or range in frequency and/or time, e.g. depending on MCS. TheMCS may be configured or configurable, e.g. by control signaling, e.g.DCI or MAC (Medium Access Control) or RRC (Radio Resource Control)signaling.

Different formats of for control information may be considered, e.g.different formats for a control channel like a Physical Uplink ControlChannel (PUCCH). PUCCH may carry control information or correspondingcontrol signaling, e.g. Uplink Control Information (UCI). UCI maycomprise feedback signaling, and/or acknowledgement signaling like HARQfeedback (ACK/NACK), and/or measurement information signaling, e.g.comprising Channel Quality Information (CQI), and/or Scheduling Request(SR) signaling. One of the supported PUCCH formats may be short, and maye.g. occur at the end of a slot interval, and/or multiplexed and/orneighboring to PUSCH. Similar control information may be provided on asidelink, e.g. as Sidelink Control Information (SCI), in particular on a(physical) sidelink control channel, like a (P)SCCH.

A code block may be considered a subelement or substructure of a dataelement or data block like a transport block, e.g., a transport blockmay comprise a one or a plurality of code blocks.

A scheduling assignment may be configured with control signaling, e.g.downlink control signaling or sidelink control signaling. Such controlssignaling may be considered to represent and/or comprise schedulingsignaling, which may indicate scheduling information. A schedulingassignment may be considered scheduling information indicatingscheduling of signaling/transmission of signaling, in particularpertaining to signaling received or to be received by the deviceconfigured with the scheduling assignment. It may be considered that ascheduling assignment may indicate data (e.g., data block or elementand/or channel and/or data stream) and/or an (associated)acknowledgement signaling process and/or resource/s on which the data(or, in some cases, reference signaling) is to be received and/orindicate resource/s for associated feedback signaling, and/or a feedbackresource range on which associated feedback signaling is to betransmitted. Transmission associated to an acknowledgement signalingprocess, and/or the associated resources or resource structure, may beconfigured and/or scheduled, for example by a scheduling assignment.Different scheduling assignments may be associated to differentacknowledgement signaling processes. A scheduling assignment may beconsidered an example of downlink control information or signaling, e.g.if transmitted by a network node and/or provided on downlink (orsidelink control information if transmitted using a sidelink and/or by auser equipment).

A scheduling grant (e.g., uplink grant) may represent control signaling(e.g., downlink control information/signaling). It may be consideredthat a scheduling grant configures the signaling resource range and/orresources for uplink (or sidelink) signaling, in particular uplinkcontrol signaling and/or feedback signaling, e.g. acknowledgementsignaling. Configuring the signaling resource range and/or resources maycomprise configuring or scheduling it for transmission by the configuredradio node. A scheduling grant may indicate a channel and/or possiblechannels to be used/usable for the feedback signaling, in particularwhether a shared channel like a PUSCH may be used/is to be used. Ascheduling grant may generally indicate uplink resource/s and/or anuplink channel and/or a format for control information pertaining toassociated scheduling assignments. Both grant and assignment/s may beconsidered (downlink or sidelink) control information, and/or beassociated to, and/or transmitted with, different messages.

A resource structure in frequency domain (which may be referred to asfrequency interval and/or range) may be represented by a subcarriergrouping. A subcarrier grouping may comprise one or more subcarriers,each of which may represent a specific frequency interval, and/orbandwidth. The bandwidth of a subcarrier, the length of the interval infrequency domain, may be determined by the subcarrier spacing and/ornumerology. The subcarriers may be arranged such that each subcarrierneighbours at least one other subcarrier of the grouping in frequencyspace (for grouping sizes larger than 1). The subcarriers of a groupingmay be associated to the same carrier, e.g. configurably or configuredof predefined. A physical resource block may be consideredrepresentative of a grouping (in frequency domain). A subcarriergrouping may be considered to be associated to a specific channel and/ortype of signaling, it transmission for such channel or signaling isscheduled and/or transmitted and/or intended and/or configured for atleast one, or a plurality, or all subcarriers in the grouping. Suchassociation may be time-dependent, e.g. configured or configurable orpredefined, and/or dynamic or semi-static. The association may bedifferent for different devices, e.g. configured or configurable orpredefined, and/or dynamic or semi-static. Patterns of subcarriergroupings may be considered, which may comprise one or more subcarriergroupings (which may be associated to same or differentsignalings/channels), and/or one or more groupings without associatedsignaling (e.g., as seen from a specific device). An example of apattern is a comb, for which between pairs of groupings associated tothe same signaling/channel there are arranged one or more groupingsassociated to one or more different channels and/or signaling types,and/or one or more groupings without associated channel/signaling).

Example types of signaling comprise signaling of a specificcommunication direction, in particular, uplink signaling, downlinksignaling, sidelink signaling, as well as reference signaling (e.g., SRSor CRS or CSI-RS), communication signaling, control signaling, and/orsignaling associated to a specific channel like PUSCH, PDSCH, PUCCH,PDCCH, PSCCH, PSSCH, etc.).

Operational conditions may pertain to load of the RAN, or application oruse case of transmission or signaling, and/or quality of service (QoS)conditions (or requirements) for a transmission or signaling. QoS mayfor example pertain to data rate and/or priority and/or latency and/ortransmission quality, e.g. BLER or BER. Use for URLLC may be considereda quality of service-related condition.

In this disclosure, for purposes of explanation and not limitation,specific details are set forth (such as particular network functions,processes and signaling steps) in order to provide a thoroughunderstanding of the technique presented herein. It will be apparent toone skilled in the art that the present concepts and aspects may bepracticed in other variants and variants that depart from these specificdetails.

For example, the concepts and variants are partially described in thecontext of Long Term Evolution (LTE) or LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) or NewRadio mobile or wireless communications technologies; however, this doesnot rule out the use of the present concepts and aspects in connectionwith additional or alternative mobile communication technologies such asthe Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). While describedvariants may pertain to certain Technical Specifications (TSs) of theThird Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), it will be appreciated thatthe present approaches, concepts and aspects could also be realized inconnection with different Performance Management (PM) specifications.

Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the services,functions and steps explained herein may be implemented using softwarefunctioning in conjunction with a programmed microprocessor, or using anApplication Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Digital SignalProcessor (DSP), a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) or generalpurpose computer. It will also be appreciated that while the variantsdescribed herein are elucidated in the context of methods and devices,the concepts and aspects presented herein may also be embodied in aprogram product as well as in a system comprising control circuitry,e.g. a computer processor and a memory coupled to the processor, whereinthe memory is encoded with one or more programs or program products thatexecute the services, functions and steps disclosed herein.

It is believed that the advantages of the aspects and variants presentedherein will be fully understood from the foregoing description, and itwill be apparent that various changes may be made in the form,constructions and arrangement of the exemplary aspects thereof withoutdeparting from the scope of the concepts and aspects described herein orwithout sacrificing all of its advantageous effects. The aspectspresented herein can be varied in many ways.

Some useful abbreviations comprise

Abbreviation Explanation ACK/NACK Acknowledgment/NegativeAcknowledgement ARQ Automatic Repeat reQuest CAZAC Constant AmplitudeZero Cross Correlation CBG Code Block Group CDM Code Division MultiplexCM Cubic Metric CORESET Control channel Resource Set CQI Channel QualityInformation CRC Cyclic Redundancy Check CRS Common reference signal CSIChannel State Information CSI-RS Channel state information referencesignal DAI Downlink Assignment Indicator DCI Downlink ControlInformation DFT Discrete Fourier Transform DM(−)RS Demodulationreference signal(ing) FDM Frequency Division Multiplex HARQ HybridAutomatic Repeat Request IFFT Inverse Fast Fourier Transform MBB MobileBroadband MCS Modulation and Coding Scheme MIMOMultiple-input-multiple-output MRC Maximum-ratio combining MRTMaximum-ratio transmission MU-MIMO Multiusermultiple-input-multiple-output OFDM/A Orthogonal Frequency DivisionMultiplex/Multiple Access PAPR Peak to Average Power Ratio PDCCHPhysical Downlink Control Channel PDSCH Physical Downlink Shared ChannelPRACH Physical Random Access CHannel PRB Physical Resource Block PUCCHPhysical Uplink Control Channel PUSCH Physical Uplink Shared Channel(P)SCCH (Physical) Sidelink Control Channel (P)SSCH (Physical) SidelinkShared Channel QoS Quality of Service RB Resource Block RNTI RadioNetwork Temporary Identifier RRC Radio Resource Control SC-FDM/A SingleCarrier Frequency Division Multiplex/Multiple Access SCI SidelinkControl Information SINR Signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio SIRSignal-to-interference ratio SNR Signal-to-noise-ratio SR SchedulingRequest SRS Sounding Reference Signal(ing) SVD Singular-valuedecomposition TDM Time Division Multiplex UCI Uplink Control InformationUE User Equipment URLLC Ultra Low Latency High Reliability CommunicationVL-MIMO Very-large multiple-input-multiple-output ZF Zero Forcing

Abbreviations may be considered to follow 3G PP usage if applicable.

1. A method of operating a target radio node in a radio access network, the method comprising: receiving control information transmitted on a control channel; and transmitting acknowledgement feedback pertaining to the control information.
 2. A target radio node for a radio access network, the target radio node being configured to: receive control information transmitted on a control channel; and to transmit acknowledgement feedback pertaining to the control information.
 3. A method of operating a transmitting radio node in a radio access network, the method comprising: retransmitting, to a target radio node control information based on acknowledgement feedback pertaining to the control information.
 4. A transmitting radio node for a radio access network, the transmitting radio node being configured to: retransmit, to a target radio node, control information based on acknowledgement feedback pertaining to the control information.
 5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the control information comprises command type control information.
 6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the control information comprises scheduling type control information, the control information indicating at least one of: at least one of resources and transmission parameters for reception of signaling; and at least one of resources and transmission parameters for transmission of signaling.
 7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the control information comprises a response resource indication indicating resources for transmission of the acknowledgement feedback.
 8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the control information comprises a second response resource indication indicating second resources for transmission of second acknowledgement feedback, the second acknowledgement feedback pertaining to second information indicated for reception by the target radio node.
 9. The method according to claim 1, wherein transmitting the acknowledgement feedback is based on determining whether the control information has been received correctly based on at least one of error coding and reception quality.
 10. The method according to claim 1, wherein the control information is transmitted in a control information message on a control channel, the control channel being one of a dedicated and a shared channel.
 11. The method according to claim 1, wherein the control information comprises at least one of a position indication indicating a position of the acknowledgement feedback relative to second acknowledgement feedback and in a feedback codebook.
 12. The method according to claim 1, wherein the acknowledgement feedback is transmitted on a control channel, the control channel being one of a dedicated and a shared channel.
 13. The method according to claim 1, wherein the acknowledgement feedback is transmitted on a data channel, the control channel being one of a dedicated and a shared channel.
 14. A computer storage medium storing an executable computer program having instructions that, when executed, causes processing circuitry to at least one of control and perform a method for operating a target radio node in a radio access network, the method comprising: receiving control information transmitted on a control channel; and transmitting acknowledgement feedback pertaining to the control information.
 15. (canceled)
 16. The method according to claim 3, wherein the control information comprises command type control information.
 17. The method according to claim 3, wherein the control information comprises scheduling type control information, the control information indicating at least one of: at least one of resources and transmission parameters for reception of signaling; and at least one of resources and transmission parameters for transmission of signaling.
 18. The method according to claim 3, wherein the control information comprises a response resource indication indicating resources for transmission of the acknowledgement feedback.
 19. The method according to claim 3, wherein the control information comprises a second response resource indication indicating second resources for transmission of second acknowledgement feedback, the second acknowledgement feedback pertaining to second information indicated for reception by the target radio node.
 20. The method according to claim 3, wherein transmitting the acknowledgement feedback is based on determining whether the control information has been received correctly based on at least one of error coding and reception quality.
 21. The method according to claim 3, wherein the control information is transmitted in a control information message on a control channel, the control channel being one of a dedicated and a shared channel. 